nine2five season 3
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: Quinn takes Chuck on the Bullet Train, with Team B in hot pursuit. That's about all this story has in common with the canon episode, so relax and enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** I think this season of nine2five will be written up as one long story, rather than as a series of episodes. I originally wrote the episode format because I thought the style of the various episodes differed, so I could specify appropriate genres as I needed to, but I doubt this season that will be the case. I also think I'll repost all the chapters of the previous two seasons in single stories as well. At least one commenter has suggested this as well, so the ayes have it.

I've seen a lot of criticism of the S4 finale, regarding the way they jumped from 'Chuck bringing the antidote' to 'the wedding', when the people doing the complaining wanted the scene of Sarah waking up and the rapturous reunion. While I doubt most people are as emotionally invested in Devon&Ellie as they are in Chuck&Sarah, I'm filling in that empty space from my last chapter.

* * *

><p>"<em>What have you done to me, Charles?"<em>

"_I'm a little brother."_

"_We killed his _pregnant sister_, Mr. Riley!" _

"_Quinn, ma'am. Nicholas Quinn."_

* * *

><p>"Congratulations, Dr. Winterbottom."<p>

The voice was dull and flat, like a rusty saw, but it promised far more pain. Doug almost stopped, but the men he was running with turned at the sound of the voice, and an arm caught him on the back and pushed him on his way. Right. No stopping for him.

The group down the hall, family and more family, were already in motion, running toward the danger he was leaving behind. They parted around him and closed ranks behind him, leaving him with the other civilian, Dr. Woodcombe.

"Hey Doug, you all right?" said the annoyingly handsome heart surgeon, but it was hard to hold his looks against him when he was so genuinely nice.

Doug put a finger to his lips and pulled a tube from his pocket. Devon's eyes widened in amazement, but he lost no time pushing open the door so Doug didn't have to stop. Good reflexes. Having a family full of spies must do that to you. Together they ran to the room where Ellie was currently slowing to a stop, and Devon ran faster to make sure that door was open too.

"Here!" yelled Doug, to the doctor who was even now preparing trays of implements for emergency surgery. "About half, in the tube."

The doctor scanned the green liquid suspiciously. "Will it hurt the baby?"

"It shouldn't," puffed out Doug, not used to this much exertion. He pointed at the trays. "But that will certainly kill the mother."

The doctor looked at the next of kin.

"Do it," said Devon, far more accustomed to making decisions in highly uncertain conditions than he ever wanted to be. He watched as the doctor injected the contents of the syringe into the tube–too much? Not enough?–all the while drifting closer to Ellie's side, taking her hand in his. So pale, so cold. _Come on, babe._

"Vitals are stabilizing."

Ellie took a deeper breath. Her hand squeezed his slightly, and she moaned.

"Temperature is rising."

"Places, people," said the obstetrician. "The baby's our priority now."

* * *

><p>"What do you mean, you lost him?" snarled Decker. "We need that pathetic geek to keep Volkoff in line."<p>

"This guy wasn't a geek, Mr. Decker," said Tommy, as incapable of sounding sorry as he did being kind. "They must have slipped in a ringer on us, he took down four guys before I could move."

"That damn Bartowski," said Decker. "He's clever. Probably has Winterbottom in some hole under Washington by now. We'll never find him in time." They had a number of fall-back positions to choose from, and Decker chose. "We'll have to escalate."

* * *

><p>"She's beautiful," whispered Ellie, her body weaker than her voice as Devon held up her child for her to see.<p>

"Just like her mother," he said as Ellie yawned. "Rest easy, babe. I'll hold the fort this time."

"You hold the fort, I'll hold my granddaughter," said Mary, sitting in the rocker with her arms outstretched. Devin was quick to surrender his new baby girl. El was already out of it, and this Mama B was more Bear than Bartowski.

The door banged open, and two figures in green scrubs came through. "Chuck, will you just let me get this damn thing tied off…?" said the new grandfather.

"I want to see."

Stephen rolled his eyes. "You uncles today. Devon, a little help?"

"Whoa, Chuckster," said Devon, catching sight of Chuck's hands, the reason his father was tying the strings on his scrubs. They'd gotten most of the fragments out, and rinsed off the fake antidote, but the wounds were still oozing blood. "Let's get you cleaned up, dude. No baby-holding with _those_ hands." He pulled Chuck over to a chair as Stephen went to stand by his wife. "Sit." He put a towel on Chuck's knees to keep the blood off the floor, went to the door and asked the nurse for a suture tray.

"Where's Sarah?" said Devon as he sat and adjusted the light to do a visual scan.

"Went after Hartley," said Chuck absently, watching his Mom and his Dad with his niece, all the new people in his family in one place. Ellie was down but the lights and beeps told him she wasn't out yet. He felt…_blessed_, he felt–pain! "_Ah_."

"Looks like you missed a piece," said Devon as the nurse brought in the tray, setting up a table for him. She also had some latex gloves and a mask. "Thanks," said Devon. "I'll call you if I need you." He waited until she left, his fingers treating the wounds automatically as he asked about what really mattered to him. "What happened out there?"

Chuck winced as the last fragments came out. "Bad guys after Hartley. When he came down with the antidote, they jumped him and Dad. Hartley pretended to have the antidote and I fell for it, and the bad guy crushed the tube in my hands." He stared at his hands, struggling to hold on to that feeling of peace as it slipped away. "I felt like he'd crushed Ellie, because of me. He wanted me to live with that."

"Hey, relax, Chuck," said Devon, as the fingers he was treating started to clench. "You guys won. You tricked them, you beat them, and they don't even know it." When the fingers relaxed he went back to work. "What was in the tube?" he asked, both to get Chuck's mind on to some other topic, and because he was concerned about contamination.

"Saline," said Stephen from across the room, his attention still seeming focused on the baby. "Mixed with a green antiseptic."

_Good ears. _"Good idea." Not that Devon didn't put on a new batch of antiseptic anyway, but this one was red. "Doesn't look like you'll need stitches, at least. A few strips, maybe tape 'em for good measure, you should be good to go, as long as you take it easy with the fisticuffs and the typing."

_Um…_"Devon, you do know what I do for a living, right?"

* * *

><p>Manoosh sat in the lab, watching Chuck's video presentation. No one had stayed to see the end, but it was his favorite part. The whole thing was about Ellie, because Chuck was all about Ellie. Some of his best music in there, but no one heard it, because Ellie…<p>

He flipped a switch, and the whole thing died.

_She'd_ almost died, and her baby with her, and if it had been up to him she would have died, he was so useless. He made the lights twinkle, while Chuck rode to the rescue. Again.

Suddenly he couldn't stand to just sit anymore. He jerked to his feet, the sudden motion propelling his chair across the room, where it slammed into a cabinet, and Manoosh turned at the noise. The cabinet door opened and a box fell out, but he was too slow to catch it before it fell to the floor.

"No!" he whined, snatching it up. "Please don't be broken! Please don't be broken!" He opened the box and unwrapped the bubble wrap, checking the lenses for cracks, the earpieces for any obvious damage. Nothing obvious, and he breathed easier. These things were expensive.

Yeah.

Expensive.

_I should check them out._ He nodded to himself at this sage advice. He didn't need Ellie to tell him his business. Maybe he was stuck fixing moisture vaporators, or fixing X-Wings so someone else could fly them and blow up Death Stars and get all the great girls, but…um…_where was I?_

He looked at his hands. Right. Glasses. He should check them out.

* * *

><p>John Casey tried to run, but there was no place to go, nowhere to hide. "How do you hold it?" he asked, as Devon held out his little girl.<p>

"It's a 'her', John, not an 'it'," he said with a laugh.

Casey glanced around at all the people catching this travesty on video. Payback, that's what it was, for recording that CAT-fight in Prague for Sarah. He acquiesced with a grunt, pretty high-numbered on Chuck's list since he didn't use it often. At least they could be trusted not to put it on the Internet.

"Come on, John," said Devon, pulling his attention back to the center. "Just imagine that this is Alex." He gestured toward the bed where Ellie lay. "Imagine that that's _her_ mother, uh…"

"Kathleen," said Casey. She'd been Alex Coburn's fiancée but Alex Coburn was dead. Died in childbirth, after a fashion. Never married his fiancée. Never held his daughter, or been a father to her. He wondered what Alex had been like as a girl, as a child. He looked at his hands, his empty hands. He had a daughter but he would never have a child.

"Right," said Devon, his voice low. "That's Kathleen over there, exhausted. This is her child, _your_ child, that the nurses have wrapped up warm and placed in your hands." Devon put his child in Casey's hands.

They came up automatically to hold her, one arm underneath, one on the outside as Casey held her to his chest. "Hey, my girl," he whispered to her. He reached out a finger to stroke her cheek and stopped, the spell broken. "I can't do this," he said suddenly, turning to Carina and depositing Clara in her surprised arms.

"Wait, what am _I_ supposed to do with it?" she asked his back as he headed for the door.

"Casey, what's the matter?" asked Chuck, lowering his phone as Devon moved to put Carina's hands in the correct places.

Casey stopped by the door and held up his hands. "I don't want the first thing that little girl smells to be the stink of gunpowder all over me. And Miller!" He pointed. "She's a 'her', not an 'it'. Treat her like one." He pushed through the doors and vanished.

Carina looked at Devon. "We stink of gunpowder?"

"Yeah, kind'a," he said apologetically.

Carina pushed back, leaving the child with her father. "I have to go change."

Devon stood there as the doors closed a second time, confused. "Devon?" said Mary, holding out her arms. Always ready to do her duty.

"My turn," said Sarah suddenly. She sat up straight in her chair and held out her arms. Mary sat back, not entirely displeased. She reached up and caught Stephen's hand where it rested on her shoulder, content to look on.

"Awesome!" said Devon, placing Clara gently in her new aunt's arms. Sarah folded them naturally and expertly into a safe and supportive position. Devon beamed. "Somebody was paying attention."

* * *

><p>Hartley Winterbottom strolled out of the haberdashery in fine form. The clothing would take a little getting used to, a far cry from his tailored power suits. Stranger still were the newly and expertly applied mustache and goatee, which he was unable to resist stroking from time to time. New laptop in hand, he sought out an Internet café, there to set up the next phase of his plan. No one would expect him to be retracing Volkoff's footsteps, but walking over them was the only way to erase them forever.<p>

* * *

><p>Casey went downstairs, freshly showered and smelling not at all like gunpowder, when he heard his phone buzz with the sound of a voicemail message. Alex. Must be back from that graduation trip Grimes took her on.<p>

He called back but got her voicemail too. "Alex, it's Dad. Sorry I haven't been available lately. Ellie delivered today, so we're all at the hospital. You know how they are about cell phones. Stop by, we'll catch up."

* * *

><p>"What do you mean I missed?"<p>

"Exactly what I said, Quinn," replied Decker. "Not only did your assault on Agent Miller's position fail, your own attack on Agent Rizzo did nothing except draw Agent Charles into the mix. Sooner or later they'll pull the matter off the back burner and realize it was you." Decker may have needed Quinn, but he wasn't about to let Quinn know that.

Quinn frowned at the schadenfreude in the other man's tone, but sucked it up. He'd lost all his men in that attack, and he still didn't know how Miller got away. Didn't know how she'd twigged to him in the first place, or would have, if his little virus in the CIA's Racial Rec programming hadn't done its job. Even so his failure to protect his clients had hurt him badly, damaged his reputation, and only the fact that he'd lost to Volkoff and Walker together kept him afloat. No one could beat Volkoff, until suddenly Agent Charles did, and he had Walker in his corner too.

What Quinn wouldn't give to have a soldier like Walker in his organization, not that he had an organization now. All he had were definite enemies, and possible allies. Time to swallow his pride. "What are you offering?"

* * *

><p>"Vail?" asked Casey, sitting with the baby while Chuck and Sarah were out getting some food. Alex was taking pictures, lots of pictures. "I didn't know they made skis with training wheels, Grimes."<p>

"Ho, ho," said Morgan, deadpan, theatrically wiping his eyes. "My sides. No, Casey, that would be training _skids_, but I didn't go to Vail to ski, I went to Vail to be skeen. That…sounded better in my head."

Casey grunted agreement. "Should'a kept it there."

"Alex was a natural on the slopes," Morgan said enthusiastically, always willing to change topics. "Left me behind on the bunny slopes that first day, but that was okay, 'cause then I was the tallest, well, except for the instructor."

"You let your girlfriend parade around the slopes of Vail with top-notch celebrity ski instructors while you hung around the kiddie pool?" Casey looked down. Less than a day old and asleep, and Clara was still clearly more sensible than that.

"Of course not," scoffed Morgan. "Once I mastered the bunny slope I went shopping, found some really good places to eat, but the prices, oh man…" He rolled his eyes.

So did Casey, probably not for the same reason. "Grimes–"

"It was _fine_, Dad," said Alex, although she really would have preferred to have Morgan around. Make her relationship status as obvious as it needed to be, for all those celebrity ski instructors, every one of whom _knew_ they were a celebrity and acted accordingly. "I got bored. I found Morgan in a sandwich shop, making a deal on some food in exchange for the recipe." She smiled. What a scrounger.

Somehow 'making a deal' sounded less than totally honorable the way she said it. "I have a reputation to uphold," said Morgan. "You can't find the best places in town to eat for under ten dollars when everything costs more than ten dollars, so I had to strike a bargain. This was a matter of principle."

Cheapskate. "Yeah, you're a real hero."

"Oh, so close." Morgan help up a hand, fingers an inch apart. "But no, a totally different sandwich. I was spreading the gospel of my favorite menu item from my Buy More days, turkey and muenster on egg bread, grilled."

"Sounds good," said Casey. As long as it wasn't K-rations, it was good to Casey.

"You bet," said Morgan. "That deli guy was selling 'em like hotcakes by the time we left, best deal he ever made. Of course, it didn't hurt that I was talking it up all over town."

"_All_ …over," said Alex.

"Hey, I was networking," said Morgan. "Those high-rollers come to DC a lot, they gotta eat somewhere, right?"

"Grimes–"

"Dad–"

* * *

><p>"Chuck?"<p>

"What?"

Sarah handed off the bags with the food to her mother-in-law so she could hold her husband. "You're spiraling."

He hugged her back, something his damaged hands were up to. "She could have died, Sarah. Clara could have died too."

"The Norseman would have ignored Clara, Chuck," said Mary.

"It should have ignored _Ellie_, shouldn't it? She wasn't the target." _She should never be a target. _"But she was standing next to me and the Norseman found her. She shouldn't even have been there."

Mary got a strange look on her face. "Say that again."

"She shouldn't even have been there."

"No," said Mary. "Before that. She was standing next to you."

* * *

><p>One thorough physical examination later…<p>

Beckman stared at the slim little needle, blown up to several times its actual size on the monitor. "A fourth tracker?"

"Yes, General," said Sarah. "If it's Vivian's she'd have known where he was ever since she put it into him."

"Which was when?"

"Given its size, shape, and likely power consumption and other parameters," said Chuck, putting those figures up in print too small to read, "We suspect the day Vivian gave us the first piece of the Norseman. The supposed attack on her would have made an excellent distraction."

"She killed her own men?" asked Hannah.

"Probably the biggest bunch of losers in her entire guard cadre," said Casey, unconcerned with that little detail. "It would explain how she knew we were in Switzerland when even Orion couldn't know we would be there."

"More to the point it gave her a general direction to aim the Norseman, without ever needing to know exactly where I was. Either the lab or my house, and then wait to see if the tracker went to a hospital."

"Which it did," said Carina.

"So she may think you're dead."

"Or not," said Sarah. "You went after Hartley, remember?"

Chuck wasn't likely to forget, after she tore strips out of him for using the Nighthawk to do it. "A possibility," he admitted. "Unless she stopped tracking after the signal reached the hospital in the first place. The Norseman is supposed to be one hundred percent accurate. Clearly it isn't but Vivian may not know that."

"I'm unwilling to risk your life on that possibility, Agent Bartowski."

"Neither are we, General," said Sarah, with a hefty dose of gratitude. "But it does give us a window of opportunity. We've found the tracker, we have a cure. I say we take the war to her."

* * *

><p>Ellie woke to the sound of somebody talking.<p>

"…And that is how the Frost Queen came back to her family," said Mary as Clara sucked on a bottle of sweetened water. "And she never left them ever again. Good story?" She felt Clara's body stiffen. "Good story. She even took care of the baby's first poop, which really stinks, but you won't read about that in any of the stories."

"That bad, huh?" asked Ellie.

"Hey," said Mary softly, with a joyous smile. "You're just in time."

"For stinky baby poop?" asked Ellie in dismay.

"Level four biohazard," said Mary. "I'll take care of it, but remind your husband he owes me."

"Where is Devon?"

"Getting some rest, I hope," said Frost from across the room. "Between the Norseman, the antidote to the Norseman, the delivery, and the post-delivery, he really wore himself out."

"I thought they were afraid she'd use the Norseman against Chuck." She waved a hand in front of her nose. "Oh my God."

Mary slid the biohazard into a containment unit and double-knotted the bag, holding her breath all the while. "She did, we think, but for some reason it affected you instead. Well, the part that you and Chuck have in common, I guess, which may be why you're alive…"

"Is Chuck all right?"

"Right as rain, and off to war," said Mary, lifting her newly-wrapped granddaughter from the change-table, and brought her to mommy. "He and Sarah convinced the General to send them out after Vivian directly, and the General was smart enough not to try and stop them. This team loves you."

Ellie frowned, even as she held her daughter for the first time. "Well, that's ridiculous, Sarah can't go to war, not in her condition."

Mary's good mood evaporated. "What condition?" Not that damned Atroxium again.

"She's pregnant," said Ellie. "I saw it in the telemetry before you ever got there. I told you all…" She tried to think back to that time, but the memories were fuzzy. "Didn't I?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **Guess they'd better win this war quickly, then.

I wanted to bring the pregnancy up in the last chapter of the last episode, but that's not what the story wanted.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** I had to go back to Bearded Bandit for some of the introductory material on Verbanski, but otherwise I'll be filling in the spaces in Chuck vs the Kept Man.

* * *

><p>"<em>The baby's our priority now." <em>

"_How do you hold it?" _

"_She was standing next to you."_

"_Sarah can't go to war, not in her condition."_

* * *

><p>In the maternity ward…<p>

"Miami?" said Ellie, watching Carina like a hawk. "What's in Miami?"

"Not me," said Carina, staring at the baby in her arms. Arm. Had to keep a hand free. "I wouldn't even know they were there, except that they had to tell me why I wasn't going with them."

"So why is that?"

Carina stroked the baby's cheek gently. "This."

"My daughter's face?"

"Faces in general, m_y_ face in particular. Whoever they're going after, it's someone who knows me."

"You _are_ memorable," said Ellie.

_Thank you. _"True, but most of the people who'd care are in jail now," said Carina. "That narrows the suspect pool a bit." She focused on Clara, to prevent her mind from narrowing it further.

The door banged open. "They've gone dark al–" said Mary. She stopped short when she saw Carina, tranq pistol in one hand, feet ready to strike, deadly focused glare, and waayyy on the other side of her, a baby who was beginning to squirm at the sudden shift in position. "Sorry. Good reflexes, though." She came forward to take Clara, so Carina could put her weapons away.

"Thanks. Why is them being dark a problem?" asked the redhead, as Mary returned the infant to her mother.

"There's a strong possibility Sarah could be pregnant," said Mary.

"I saw a third pulse in my monitors," said Ellie. "Much too fast to be hers or Chuck's. Could be a fetus."

_Let's hear it for high tech. _"Crap, they've gone hunting for bear," said Carina.

"And we have no way to warn them," said Ellie.

Yes she did. "I'll be joining them after Miami."

"It's Miami I'm worried about," said Mary. "You can't go there. None of us can."

'Us' meaning 'CIA', and no, they couldn't. Tagalongs, they had to be. On whose op? Her mind started narrowing down the suspect pool again and this time she let it. "I have to make a phone call," she said, heading for the door. "I'll be right back."

* * *

><p>"Anybody wanna tell me what we're doing in Miami?" asked Casey, already getting a headache from all the women in bikinis he was keeping his eyes averted from, and that was just the airport. Didn't any of these people know it was winter? "And it had better be mission-related." How could he check six when they were everywhere?<p>

"Trust me, Casey, I want to see you in a Speedo even less than you want to be seen in one," said Chuck, doing his best to check six on Casey's behalf.

"Can't say _I'd_ mind," said Sarah, nudging her husband in the ribs. "All the skimpy outfits I've had to wear over the years, be nice to be on the looking-and-leering end for a change."

"You'd leer?" asked Chuck. He took a deep breath to check if she'd cracked anything.

"Okay, probably not," said Sarah, once she actually got around to imagining Casey in a Speedo. Almost. She got as far as visualizing him shirtless. "But it's not about doing it, it's about having the opportunity."

Lecherous female agents were worse than the lecherous males, in Casey's experience. They got fewer opportunities. Which reminded him…"Heh. You should meet Gertrude," he said, under his breath.

Sarah once heard Chuck's mother over an airplane's engine and a roaring wind, she had no problem with Casey's mutter. "Really, Casey? Gertrude who?"

"No one."

"That didn't sound like a 'no one', Casey," said Chuck, backing up his wife as he always would.

"Let me rephrase that, Bartowski," said Casey. "She's no one you'd want to meet. Verbanski, Gertrude Verbanski. Former KGB, took her act on the road after the Soviet Union collapsed. She's gone up against every major intelligence outfit there is and come out on top. She'd give Agent Charles a run for his money."

"I think you like her."

"I think you sound like a six-year-old. I went up against her in Minsk, in 1995. She still has my gun." Casey didn't like people who took his guns.

"Went up against her, eh?" repeated Chuck with a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudge in his voice.

"Sarah, try those ribs again, harder."

"I don't know, Casey," said Sarah, "He does seem to have a point."

"What he has, is his head up his…" Grunt. Deep breath. "I was merely expressing professional admiration for a professional who acts professionally. Unlike some spies I could mention."

"Whoa, you guys are spies?" asked a passing tourist.

"No, he was just talking about that TV show with the spies in Miami," said Chuck. Maybe there was one.

"Oh," said the tourist, disappointed, with a strong hint of 'whatever'. "TV spies."

"Good job, Mr. Professional," said Sarah after they got some privacy again.

"Come on, Sarah," said Chuck, as Casey stewed in it. "It's good for the cover. Clearly _we_ can't be professional spies, not if we get caught out like that."

They walked on in silence, just three more tourists, a bit overdressed.

"Anybody wanna tell me what we're doing in Miami?" said Casey.

* * *

><p>Later, in their hotel room, professionally swept for bugs, and listening devices too…<p>

"Here you go, Casey. Rocky Falcone," said Chuck, plopping a file with the man's picture and other vital details on the table. "Killed his way to the top of Miami's illegal arms trade."

Some local yahoo. Casey couldn't have cared less. "So? That's ATF business."

"Not anymore."

"Watch yourself, Bartowski," said Casey. "There are rules to this game. Don't become Volkoff while you're destroying her."

Chuck smiled. "Not my plan, Casey, but thanks for your concern. Thanks to Vivian's consolidation of the illegal arms trade, we have quite a few agencies getting into the interdiction business."

Casey sneered at the whole idea. "New faces won't go over so well. Dealers will spot them in a second, be all kinds of suspicious."

"Of new faces, yes."

"So we hit them with old faces," said Sarah, catching on. "Familiar faces, with perhaps a few new advisers in the background."

"I was thinking 'muscle' , but 'advisers' works too," said Chuck.

"Doesn't make it legal," said Casey.

"No, but the FBI does. They'll be the ones running the op. We're just along for the ride." He checked his watch. "Or we would be, if there was a ride to be along on. We were all supposed to be here early, get established as guests, but I don't know what's holding them up."

Someone knocked on the door, and Chuck clapped his hands together. "That should be them now."

* * *

><p>"Hello, John."<p>

John drew himself up stiffly. "Miss Verbanski."

"What, no kiss for an old flame?"

Casey grunted, and turned to meet Gertrude's FBI liaison as Gertrude went on to meet his partners.

"Colonel Casey," she said.

"Alex?"

Verbanski turned at the familiarity. "A little young for you, isn't she, John?"

He gave her a dark look. "I knew her father." He turned back to his daughter. "What are you doing here?"

"Field experience."

"You're going in with us?"

Alex looked unhappy. "Unfortunately not." She waved a hand around her face. "Too recognizable. I'll be stuck in here while you guys get to do all the hands-on stuff."

_Thank God_. "That's too bad. Still, this is a high-profile op–" maybe it wasn't before but it sure as hell was now "–your father would be proud. Especially babysitting this one." He jerked a thumb at Gertrude. "She's a brat."

"I thought I was the one doing the babysitting," said the brat.

Casey smirked at her. "For Agent McHugh? I don't think so. She'll staple you to the wall if you go off script."

"I left my nail gun back at the office," said Alex.

"This is Miami, buy a new one."

"Speaking of scripts…?" asked Chuck, trying to get the meeting back on track. "Miss Verbanski…" Chuck waited a beat, expecting a polite invitation to use a less formal mode of address. Gertrude sat silently and waited. "Ahem, Casey was just telling us about you."

Gertrude went still. "You knew I was coming?"

"No, not at all," said Chuck anxious to reassure her that the op hadn't been blown already. "We were talking about uh, swimwear, actually, and one thing led to another…"

"Really?" She glared at Casey. "You told them about that?"

"I didn't _tell_ them anything," said Casey. "But I was thinking about _after_ that."

"Oh, _that_ 'that'." She looked Casey up and down, with a smile. "You remembered."

Casey shuddered.

Chuck watched, wide-eyed, until he received a Casey-style death-glare. "Um, he also told us you're in the, um, private security business?" Polite spy-talk for 'mercenary'.

"Verbanski Corp. has three hundred agents worldwide. CIA, KGB, Mossad, Interpol. We've worked for both the Pentagon and the Kremlin."

That sounded like a sales pitch. "Ah. So when Casey said you took your act on the road, he really meant that you'd bought the road and were charging tolls."

Gertrude gave Casey another glance. "Not all of it."

* * *

><p>"Dad, what's going on?" asked Alex as they took a break, a few hours later. She and her father's friend Col. John Casey were out on the balcony for some private time.<p>

"What do you mean?" he asked, his glass held so no one could read his lips from a mile away.

"I was in a cubicle this morning, going over some case studies, when they dragged me into an office and handed me this assignment. I don't even know what I'm doing here."

Casey knew. One of the original reasons for sanctioning their marriage, aside from the suicidal idiocy of denying the CIA's top assassin something she really really wanted, was that Chuck's main bodyguard would be there without having to assign anyone to the job. Alex would liaise with Team Bartowski for pretty much the same reason, but he'd let her figure that part out for herself. Field experience. "Didn't sound it."

"They gave me the other agent's notes. Since when do you go after gun-runners?"

"Since the world's biggest arms dealer almost killed my partner's sister, and he's a Special Agent." Casey shrugged. "I would have gone for the direct approach."

"That would just rally her newly-acquired troops around her." Direct frontal assaults will do that.

On the plus side, it would save him the trouble of hunting them down. "Chuck said the same thing. He's going for a divide-and-conquer strategy."

Alex considered it. "She's got the Volkoff brand going for her, but some of those ambitious underlings have to be wondering if she's up to it. She's only a woman, you know. In Russia."

"Is that why Gertrude's here?"

"Gertrude is here because Gertrude wants to be here, and if there's one thing I've learned about that woman, it's that whatever she wants, she gets." Alex looked past Casey into the room, and saw Gertrude staring at Casey, while Chuck poured drinks all around. She went pale. "Sorry, dad, I have to go."

Casey followed, curious.

* * *

><p>One home (or hotel room) pregnancy test later…<p>

Chuck sat in shock. "I'm sorry I was such a clueless, ignorant husband, Sarah."

Sarah took his hand. "Don't be silly, Chuck. I can't blame you for not picking up that I might be pregnant when I missed all the signs myself."

"But I should have. My life is all about you."

Sarah leaned in close, leaning her head on his shoulder. "And mine's all about you."

"Exactly!" He had no free hands, otherwise he would have flung them about in exasperation. "I wouldn't expect you to notice that you're pregnant, but how can I make all that food and miss the fact that you're starving all the time? And the salads?"

"And that awful, awful pizza."

"Hey, that pizza was good, I told you that."

"It's changing!"

Chuck lifted the test stick. "I'm seeing a plus sign. Are you seeing a plus sign?"

Sarah saw a plus sign. She lifted the instructions, checking the output section. "That's a positive."

Chuck lowered his hand. There must have been something wrong with the stick, it was shaking. "Oh, God. We just declared war." Vivian and the Norseman, she had to have some of Sarah's DNA available, right? _How can I get Sarah to stay away from the front line?_ Maybe they could still call back the messenger, no, that would never work, they'd have to track him down first…

"Well," said Sarah slowly, her mind sluggish. "We'll just have to win it quickly." _No way I'm staying off the front line._

Someone pounded on the bathroom door. "Charles! Chow time."

* * *

><p>Meanwhile, back in DC…<p>

Morgan Grimes made his rounds, the favorite parts of his day. He still loved kitchen work, and occasionally he would doff the jacket and don the chef's coat for a meal or two, just to keep his hand in and his skills fresh. He was at heart a people person, though, and seeing the happiness that his staff brought to their customers was his special managerial privilege.

He flashed a glance at the secure booth, and found it occupied. _Yes._ He'd told his boss that a booth where private really did mean private would be a good investment. Chuck told him once that the word in Washington was that when you had an op laid on, there were only two places you could be, in your office of in that booth.

He recognized the red bun of Chuck's boss easily enough, but her companion wasn't the white-haired smooth-talker she usually came in with. He went over to pay his respects, knocking at the outermost panel to alert the occupants, giving them time to stop talking about delicate topics.

Or not. "–some clueless newbie stepping all over my operation, dammit!" The man broke off his sentence at Morgan's appearance by the booth.

General Beckman was more experienced. "Good evening, Mr. Grimes. I don't believe you've met Agent Johnson, of the FBI?"

Agent Johnson offered his hand. "If I have to commandeer any of your staff, I'll try to let you know."

Morgan grinned, and matched him quote for quote. "I thought you at the FBI did not have a sense of humor that you were aware of."

"We don't."

"Oh." Morgan's smile froze over. He withdrew his hand, wiping it against his lapel as he unnecessarily straightened his suit coat. "Well…okay then. I'll just…leave you to your meal. Agent," he nodded politely. "General."

* * *

><p>At the Maya, after the meet…<p>

"To the happy couple," said Gertrude. Glasses clinked all around, wine to scotch to wine to water. Chuck followed it up with a kiss, determined to make _this_ evening a happy one. She smiled as he pulled back, equally determined.

"I must say I'm a bit surprised, though," said Verbanski. "I would have thought a pair of spies of your reputation would have taken better precautions. I'm not getting the impression that this was deliberate."

"It wasn't…exactly," said Chuck.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Charles?" said Casey. "'Not exactly deliberate' sounds like 'almost pregnant', and I think we can all agree that there's no 'almost' involved here."

"Chuck promised me children years ago, Casey, you know that," said Sarah, putting down her glass of water.

"Why would you do that?" asked Gertrude.

"Um…" said Chuck, eyes boggled.

"It was on my terms, not his," said Sarah.

"She's not like us, Gertrude," said Casey. "Not anymore. Chuck broke the CIA's best agent, made her into a real girl, and now she wants to go play Leave It to Beaver."

"I'm not the only one," said Sarah, staring at him.

"Really, John? Is that true?" said Verbanski. "You do seem…different."

"No," said Casey. "I'm a patriot now, I was a patriot then. You were…whatever you were paid to be, then _and_ now."

"I was a start-up," said Gertrude. "It's hard to be picky about your clients when you have to make payroll. I'm a lot more choosy now." Her arm moved.

Suddenly Casey stiffened by her side.

Gertrude ignored it, addressing Chuck and especially Sarah, "So. An opportunity arose and you took it?" She sounded approving. Casey grunted, trying to move away. "I'm a big believer in taking advantage of opportunities whenever they present themselves."

Sarah toyed with her glass. "Honestly, I, erm, don't remember. I'd been poisoned, I wasn't thinking straight."

"We counted back, Casey. Near as we can figure, it was the night she was waiting for me in Prague."

"When she pushed me out the window? She wasn't–You weren't thinking at all, Charles."

Gertrude leaned closer. "You pushed him out the window?"

Sarah remembered the glass breaking. "I guess so. I don't know why. All I can remember is being so angry…"

"I can understand that." Gertrude looked at Casey. "So it's not just me you have that effect on. What did you do this time?"

"I didn't do anything," said Casey. "I wasn't even in the room. I came to get Chuck for a mission to England, and there she was."

"Maybe you should have asked more politely."

"Who asked? I just gave him the old 'rise and shine'." Casey pounded the table three times. "Charles! Rise and shine! Time to–"

Suddenly Sarah was in his face, hands curled on his collar. Something liquid spilled into Casey's lap as glass shattered.

The move caught Chuck by surprise. "Um, sweetie…"

Sarah didn't hear him. "He…was…_sleeping_!"

"Sarah?" said Chuck, putting a hand on her arm. "People are staring."

"Leave us alone!"

Casey reached up and gripped Sarah's wrists, pulling them away from his shirt. "Get a hold of yourself, Walker."

He released her, and Sarah sank back into her chair, resting her aching head on her hands. "I hated you, Casey. Hated. You were everything that was wrong in my life, and Chuck was the only thing that was right."

"He still is, but I'm not," said Casey.

"I'm sorry."

Grunt #1. "Just stop being so emotional, we'll call it even."

"Shut up."

* * *

><p>Later that night, at Falcone's private range…<p>

"I don't want your money."

Verbanski looked startled. "That's three million dollars in cash," she said, pointing to the large silver case as if Falcone had somehow managed to overlook it.

"Oh, I'll take it," said Falcone. "I just don't want it." He snapped his fingers, and several henchman revealed themselves, weapons trained on the group of mercenaries stupid enough to allow themselves to be trapped in a concrete cul-de-sac. "What I want is _you_, Gertrude. Verbanski Corp. has deep pockets, I'm sure they'll pay a lot more than a mere three mil for their CEO back."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **Did anyone else notice that Gertrude's FBI-run operation never had an FBI liaison in it?


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N **Stepping on my own toes a bit. I don't normally have multiple stories running, and I'm trying to avoid posting to both of them on the same day, not sure if that matters to anyone but me. I've noticed that I've once again stepped back in time a little from the ending of the previous chapter, showing the same period from a different perspective. I'm not sure if that will be a regular thing, I'm feeling my way along in this story. I'm basically reversing the order, putting Kept Man to Goodbye first, with the rest of the season coming after, but I'll be trying to keep to the episodes as they are, the way I did with S3.

A lot of Kept Man deals with a B plot, in which Jeff discovers the spy team and Morgan and Devon mislead them, one of the best uses of the Buy More in several seasons, and a story I was actually able to use, after a fashion. One of the reasons for the overlap mentioned above is that this plot is more prominent in this segment of the canon episode and I needed to tell a different story in its place.

* * *

><p>"<em>What's in Miami?"<em>

"_Don't become Volkoff while you're destroying her."_

"_Are you seeing a plus sign?"_

"_Leave us alone!"_

* * *

><p>Back in the hotel room, monitoring the dinner...<p>

His voice over the phone was both arrogant and demanding. "Agent McHugh, your report?"

Alex turned up the volume on the recorder. If the quality of the room service was any indication, the food in the restaurant had to be spectacular, and no one was wasting any time right now talking. The blips and blops on the oscilloscope matched the clinking of silverware against porcelain perfectly. "I could be home right now, watching _Downton Abbey_ with my dad. It's movie night, you know."

"That's not a proper report, Agent McHugh."

"You're not a proper superior, Agent Johnson," she replied. "You know as well as I do that this is a need-to-know situation, and you don't need to know."

"It's my operation!"

She knew that, and in addition to listening to her team drink wine and negotiate arms deals, she was analyzing that plan to death, looking for pinch points as the FBI, and more importantly her Dad, had taught her. "You know what happens to agents who get territorial, don't you, Johnson?"

"_A toast to the happy couple,"_ said the speaker.

Johnson breathed loudly into the phone, while she counted slowly. "Just don't screw it up, McHugh. I take a lot of pride in my work."

She rolled her eyes, unseen. _And of course I don't_. "Duly noted."

* * *

><p>John and Gertrude watched their younger counterparts as they left the table, Sarah with a sudden blinding headache and Chuck providing support and guidance.<p>

"Poisoned?" asked Gertrude.

"Not anymore," said Casey, remembering the same wild look in her eyes, when she fought him in that hall. "Bit of a flashback, if you ask me."

"Will it affect the mission?"

Casey curled his lip at the lack of sentiment, mercenary or otherwise. _She's my partner, dammit!_ The best spy he'd ever worked with, married to the second best spy he'd ever worked with. "No. She's a professional, they both are. You'll see." Suddenly Casey realized he was being insensitive to Gertrude's concerns. "Don't worry, it's a side-issue. You'll get paid, whatever happens." He turned to signal a waiter for some boxes.

Verbanski stabbed her fork into her entrée so hard she almost shattered the plate under it. "Thank God for that."

* * *

><p>Later that night, back in the hotel room, while Alex is monitoring the meet…<p>

"Good evening, Agent McHugh. How's the mission going?"

_Not another one. Doesn't anyone think I can do this? _"You know I can't tell you that, General."

"I do, and I'm glad you do as well, Agent," said Beckman pleasantly. "However, _Alex_, I'm calling about your other mission. The one I trust no one had to waste breath briefing you about."

Alex sat up straighter in her chair, not that the General could see her, but still…"No, General, uh, ma'am." No way she was calling her Diane.

"How did she take the news?"

"Um, pretty well, General," said Alex, trying not to wince as she said it.

"Do you really think it's wise to lie to a superior officer, even if she isn't in your chain of command?"

_Gee, let me think…_"No? General?"

"So perhaps you'd like to reconsider your answer."

Alex reconsidered her answer. "She might have been more surprised if I'd hit her in the face with a fresh fish, General, but I doubt it."

"That's better. Thank you, Agent."

"And she also seems to have had a flashback, not sure if it's related."

Beckman's voice lost its amused tone, became all business. "What kind? What about?"

"She pushed my dad out a window, while she was poisoned, or something?" Alex would be practicing her interrogation skills on somebody real soon. "My dad pounded the table and next thing I know she's shouting at him to leave them alone."

"Leave them alone?" said Beckman, in the tone of someone taking notes.

"Yes, ma'am. She came back from the dinner early, with a headache, or at least that's what she said. It went away pretty quickly, if you ask me. When she rejoined the team she seemed fine."

"When I want your opinion on any subject, Agent McHugh, you will know it," said the General severely. "Agent Bartowski deserves nothing less than your full support, your father would be the first to tell you that."

And her mother, and her cousins…"Yes, General," she replied crisply, as annoyed with herself for her slip as the General probably was.

"You may return to your duties now." Both of them.

* * *

><p>On the way to the meet that Alex is monitoring...<p>

"I can't believe you're accepting a meet in an unsecured location," grumbled Casey, lugging Gertrude's 'checkbook' with both hands.

"This isn't my first weapons deal, John," said Verbanski. She rapped on the door.

"Maybe not, but from the look of this guy it might be your last."

The door opened from within. "Good evening, Miss Verbanski, and guests," said Falcone with what he probably thought was charm. "Nice sweater," he said as they entered. Chuck and Sarah scoped the place out, while Casey clearly had his boss' well-being in mind.

Gertrude ran a proprietary hand down Casey's cashmere-covered arm. "At Verbanski Corp., we have a 'work hard, play hard, dress soft' policy."

Falcone kept his distance. "Business must be booming if you can afford to dress your security that well."

Gertrude smiled about something. "Speaking of booming…"

"Just show us the guns," finished Casey.

Falcone led them to his 'private range', a concrete wall with some circles drawn on it. He had a table set up, with a case, and from the case he withdrew the weapon. Small and boxy, perfect for terrorists and criminals. Casey wondered why someone like Verbanski would want this, as he snatched it from Falcone's hands.

"Where are the specs?" he asked.

"Specs?" said Falcone.

"Our people have studied the design, John," said Gertrude.

"Then let one of them test this thing," said Casey. "I'm not pulling that trigger until I put it together myself, so I can be sure it won't blow up in our faces while Chuckles over there walks away with your dough."

Gertrude stepped back. "I pay him for his expertise," she said to Falcone. "Not his manners." As if she couldn't have field-stripped the unit herself.

Casey popped out a panel, showing the words 'Safety Off'. Damn lab geeks. Who needs a screen to tell them the safety's on? He snapped it back in and continued his exercise. When he was satisfied, he picked up the unit and aimed at the circle, pulling the trigger.

Concrete chips sprayed impressively.

"Well, John?" asked Verbanski.

"It's a nice toy," he said, "Not worth what he's asking, though."

Gertrude turned back to Falcone. "You're going to have to do better than this if you want my money."

"I don't want your money," said Falcone, snapping his fingers.

One quick and dirty gun deal gone bad later…

Chuck and Sarah raised their hands as Falcone's men pointed their own Aegises their way.

Casey growled. _That's what this was all about? A kidnapping?_ No one kidnapped John Casey's primary! He lifted his 'nice toy' and pulled the trigger. His Aegis clicked.

Falcone smirked at Casey's look of surprise. "Apparently your boss didn't tell you that the Aegis' safety feature won't let it be fired at another Aegis with the same code."

Casey pulled out the screen, and saw the words 'Safety On'.

"Prevents 'friendly-fire' incidents," said Falcone, with a laugh. "Ingenius, no?"

"No," said Casey. "Two reasons. First, if I can't shoot at you, then you can't shoot at me, so you're all unarmed."

Falcone's men looked at their guns in shock, not realizing that only Casey was protected. Chuck and Sarah dropped their arms, pointing them at Falcone's men before flipping up their hands. The tranq shooters in their sleeves each fired at a different man, dropping them like sacks of meat to the concrete floor.

"Second," said Casey, as if nothing had happened, "I just changed the code." He pointed the gun at Falcone, whose own weapon wasn't even aimed. He hadn't really, but saying so was as good as doing it in these situations.

"Well, Rock," said Verbanski snidely, walking up to him, "I think your price just dropped, to free." She punched him and he fell. Casey sneered at the glass jaw.

Chuck looked around. "Well, that wasn't so hard. We got Falcone, his men, and his weapons, just like–"

"Don't!" shouted Verbanski.

"That." Chuck snapped his fingers.

BOOM!

Doors blew inward, not quite as hard as if they'd been kicked by Buffy the Vampire Slayer but not bad for high explosives. A crowd of armed and armored men swarmed in, with no one on their feet to point their weapons at.

Chuck looked at his hand, still in post-snap state. "Oops."

* * *

><p>"Well, how was I supposed to know she had her own strike team assembled?" said Chuck indignantly, as they rode the elevator to the command center.<p>

"I don't know, Chuck," said Casey. "Because she's a _mercenary_, maybe?"

"I'd think that a mercenary would be even more interested in cost-effective ways to handle these little issues, not less."

"Nah, they just add it to the bill," said Casey dismissively. "It's taxpayer dollars _I_ worry about." The elevator dinged, and the kept it quiet until they got to the room. "Hey, Alex."

She waved at them, but her attention was on her headphones, not them. "She's interrogating him now."

Casey hurried over, grabbing another set of headphones as he sat with his daughter.

Chuck and Sarah went to the bed, still a bit disarrayed from her previous visit. "You feeling all right?" asked Chuck as she settled herself again in the same spot.

She waved a hand vaguely at her face. "The Aegis, the doorbusters. They just brought my headache back, that's all."

They had painkillers. "You want something for that?"

"Not until I talk to my obstetrician, no."

That was fast. "You have an obstetrician?"

"I do now."

"Whoever heard of an OB-GYN with clearance?"

"We'll be talking about babies, Chuck, not logistics." Not that those were as different as one might think.

"What about your explosion-related headache?"

"Obviously I'll blame that on my overly-attentive husband."

"Here, babe, let me carry that heavy dish for you," said Chuck, trying and failing completely to capture Devon's laid-back tone. "Hey babe, let me get the door for you. Hey babe, let me carry you, the mother of my baby shouldn't have to walk all the way out to the car…"

Sarah burst out laughing. "Yeah. Like that."

Thank God for bad examples. "Ask Ellie for her 'caves and fields' speech, then feel free to hit me with it as needed."

"I've already got a remedy in mind."

Uh-oh. She had spent quite a lot of time in his mother's company. "There's a prescription for that?"

"Yeah." She reached up a hand to touch his face. "Stars. Lots and lots of lucky stars, for me to thank each and every day of my life, that you're in it."

Chuck laid a gentle hand on her belly. "Save some for me," he said, leaning down to kiss her.

"Oo!" said Casey loudly, and they looked over at the comm equipment, but no one was looking at them.

"That's gonna leave a mark," said Alex to her father, and they toasted each other with bottles of whatever non-alcoholic beverage was in the fridge.

"Do we want to know?" said Chuck.

"I know I don't," said Sarah.

Chuck looked down at his spread hand. "Is that the way we want to raise our kids?"

Sarah clasped her hands together over his. "It's not like Casey had anything to do with her upbringing, Chuck."

"You're not cheering me up here, Sarah." Please don't let it be genetic.

"Don't start spiraling, Chuck."

"I'm not spiraling, you're spiraling."

"You're both spiraling," said Casey, tugging the headphones from his ears and glaring at them. "You're ruining a perfectly good interrogation with all your maudlin whining. If I'd thought Kath would raise any children we might have together to be creatures I couldn't stand to have around, I wouldn't have chosen her to have those children in the first place. Get me?" He put the 'phones back on and settled in to listen.

Brown eyes looked into blue. Their child had two spies for parents. "I'm still holding out for a beautiful blonde nerd."

"We're doomed," said Sarah.

* * *

><p><em>A young god walked casually down the sidewalk, as tall as his father, as blond as his mother. Blue eyes scanned the surroundings. "I'm making the drop now," he said to no one. For some reason he sounded a lot like Devon.<em>

_He bent to check the headlines in a newspaper box, smoothly sliding a card in between the machines. Whistling, he walked away._

_Two men walked up to the machines, taking the card from its hiding spot, details for a meeting. "Excellent," said the skinny one. "Agent Bartowski is as good as ours."_

* * *

><p>He snapped awake, nameless dread receding. Comfortable darkness. Soft and warm. It smelled like Sarah. Long fingers flexed. Felt like Sarah.<p>

* * *

><p><em>The moving train swayed on the tracks, and she lost her balance. Her belly hit a low rail and exploded in pain.<em>

* * *

><p>"Oh," Sarah moaned, not a happy moan.<p>

Warm body rolled out from under questing fingers. _No! Don't go!_ Stumbling footsteps sounded, racing to the bathroom.

"Smooth moves, Romeo," said Casey. "How'd you ever manage to have a kid, anyway?"

Chuck rolled over, throwing off the light blanket he couldn't remember putting over them. "Casey?" Someone made a loud retching noise in the bathroom. "Sarah?"

"Don't just lie there, Chuck," said Casey, nudging the bed with his knee. "Get up and hold the little woman's hair."

"What if she's, like…_doing_ something?"

"Then I'd give her points for efficiency." Casey rolled his eyes. "You don't have to actually do it, genius, you just have to try. You knock, she says she'll kill you if you even touch the knob, you back off and order some crackers from room service." He shrugged. "Simple enough."

Chuck rolled sideways, shambling toward the bathroom. He knocked. "Sweetie?"

"You try to come in and I'll kill you!"

Chuck took a step back. "Right. Crackers." He went back into the room, only to find Casey and Alex sacked out where he and Sarah had been, both of them snoring. "That was quick."

* * *

><p>Gertrude Verbanski sat in the front of her Zodiac. Falcone had given up his supplier's position in the Everglades, just as she'd expected. The incursion was proceeding just as she'd planned. The inclusion of John Casey and his team, not as planned. Not even as hoped.<p>

Seeing him again had been a pleasant surprise, surprisingly pleasant, and Gertrude wasn't the sort of woman who liked surprises. Still the same…_"I'm a patriot."_ She'd been a patriot too, once. Lucky him, to not have a country collapse under his feet, its uniform worse than meaningless.

What else was there for her, other than to become a mercenary? Certainly swearing allegiance to some other country's flag would be the worst sort of disloyalty. John didn't seem to realize that. She hoped, mostly, soldier to soldier, that he never would, never be forced out of the uniform he so loved to wear.

A small, malicious part of her had taken some pleasure in doing so temporarily, though. The sweater had been presented as cover, the only way he'd take it, and his unhappiness to be seen wearing her 'colors', even for a little while, was a nice bit of payback for all his snotty remarks.

He was different, though, and something in her liked the difference. The narrow-minded patriot whose gun she'd taken in Minsk would never have responded so gently to Sarah's assault on him at the dinner table that previous night. The Casey she knew had no interest in 'ladyfeelings', not even during their one post-mission tryst, way back when.

Maybe he'd learned a new trick, the old dog.

Then it blew up in her face, as she might have known it would. Only a fool tried to force John Casey to do anything. _You'll get paid._ As if money was the only thing she…cared for.

Falcone took the brunt of that…disappointment, just as well. Was Casey listening in? She hoped so, and went a bit further than her usual. When Falcone (eventually) cracked, she (eventually) got around to informing her government liaison, only to find that Casey had gone to sleep long before. Then the little wifey was puking again and Gertrude had no interest in pursuing that conversation.

She needed somebody to hit, and Falcone wasn't going to cut it anymore. Training for the mission also wouldn't do, not if she wanted any of her team to actually be able to go on the mission.

To hell with it, to hell with John. Falcone's supplier, Pedro St. Germaine, had a sizable bounty on his head already. She could collect that instead. Make the FBI happy without having to deal with Casey and his people. She'd just have to find some other little project to put into her 'charitable contributions' folder.

The Zodiac bumped against soft ground and she trampled those thoughts into the mud. Her team fanned out behind her, eyes alert, scanning the trees, the bushes. Nothing and no one challenged them as they advanced, until she got to the treeline and the lights beyond it.

St. Germaine's compound was the usual collection of shacks and hovels, minimal shelter for the men moving crates of weaponry around. Abandon it and the whole place would be reclaimed by the swamp in days. The main 'road' ran north-south between the huts, and the loading jetty was to the west, making her incursion point clear. "We'll attack from the East," she told her lieutenant. "Take St. Germaine alive." For a second she amused herself with an image of her parading St. Germaine past Casey.

Gunfire in the distance.

No. Not in the distance. Behind them! She dropped by sheer reflex. Troops, her troops, spun and died all around her.

Then she was alone.

Men approached her position, not bothering to conceal their presence anymore, and how had they done it in the first place? Verbanski rose to her knees, surrendering her pistol before they did something more drastic than merely take it from her. She stayed down, rather than give anyone the satisfaction of knocking her down a second time.

A tall man in a bright red shirt appeared from between two trees, carrying a shotgun. "Figured it would only be a matter of time before that rat Falcone sold me out."

"Everyone talks, Pedro."

St. Germaine laughed. "That's right, _Gertrude_, they do. Which is why I have this location for them to send people to. We even do some business here."

A trap, and here she was, no strike team to get her out of this one. She'd made a mistake in a business where you only get one, and now she was about to die for John Casey. "You just gonna wave that thing around or do you plan to use it?" she asked, hoping to provoke him into making it quick.

"Use this on the head of a billion-dollar-a-year company?" One of his men pulled out a zip-tie as she was lifted to her feet. "You're more valuable to me alive. For now."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **I wish I could have come up with a better dream sequence for Sarah, but there wasn't anything I could modify for the purpose, so I made it up and kept it brief.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N **Even though I'm doing this whole season under one title, I'll be keeping to the four chapters per episode format, so this is the last part of the revision of Kept Man.

* * *

><p>"<em>Will it affect the mission?"<em>

"_I just changed the code." _

"_Stars. Lots and lots of lucky stars."_

"_That was quick."_

* * *

><p>Casey woke to the sounds of quiet purpose. Chuck was monitoring the electronics, while Sarah was busy on another computer, with running commentary. "Your mother would have had a field day with this. I found one pinch-point Alex didn't, and I'm sure Mary could find more."<p>

"Are they fixable in time?" asked Chuck.

"I can tweak the ones I found," said Sarah. "She made the manpower requests, I don't know if the people are available, though."

"What's going on?" said Casey, rolling off the bed.

No one looked up but neither seemed surprised at his sudden entry into their conversation. "Verbanski missed her check-in," said Sarah.

Casey checked the clock. "It's not time yet."

"Her check-in with her own company," said Chuck. "They called us. Apparently she decided to change the plan and go it alone. Took all of her people, launched an early strike, and that's the last they know."

"Doesn't sound like Gertrude at all," said Casey.

"Yeah, well, it gets worse," said Sarah. "She took their entire team. Without us she had no men to spare. Verbanski Corp. is requesting our assistance."

Casey's lip curled in confusion, rather than his usual disdain. "They're what?" Security companies gave assistance, they didn't ask for it. "This makes no sense."

"What did you say to her last night, Casey?" asked Chuck.

"Nothing, Bartowski," snapped Casey. "She was worried that you two, sorry, you _three_, would blow the mission. I told her you wouldn't, that you were pros, and that she didn't have anything to worry about, payment-wise."

"So basically, she insulted us," said Sarah, knowing how Casey would take Verbanski's remark. "And you insulted her back."

"How can you insult a mercenary?" asked Casey, confused. "Bounce the check?"

"From a distance?" said Chuck.

_Men. _"You're such an idiot, Casey. Did you manage to notice even one of the signals she was throwing your way all day?"

"What are you talking about, Bartowski?" said Casey, leaning on the table ominously. "Gertrude Verbanski doesn't 'send signals', she shoots off flares. I'd have to be the most clueless, insensitive, uncaring–" He broke off at the feel of Chuck's hand on his arm.

"You know, Sarah, you're right, this cashmere is really soft. Gonna be a bitch to keep clean, though, all that dry-cleaning…"

"Hands off, Bartowski," said Casey, pulling back. "Unfortunately, I _know_ where they've been." He looked down at his arm, then up at Sarah.

Sarah made a _ta-da_ gesture but otherwise said nothing.

Both men adopted near-identical expressions of disgust, but Casey was actually inside the damned thing. He pulled the sweater over his head and launched it across the room, where it ended, coincidentally, in a garbage can.

"Good shot," said Chuck.

"I wasn't aiming."

"Just trying to build up your sniper cred, Casey," said Chuck innocently, "You know, before you go all private-sector on us–"

"She's not trying to hire a sniper, Chuck. The only thing she's interested in is him."

"Casey?" said Chuck in amazement. "Physically?"

Casey looked annoyed. "Sexually."

"And the last time you even _met_ her was in '95?"

"You ever have sex with someone who just tried to kill you?" asked Casey. Chuck looked on in horror as the big men's eyes got all unfocused. "It was incredible." His face hardened. "But I'm no one's lapdog."

"That's the spirit, Casey. Focus on the mission."

"What _is_ the mission?" Casey looked around. "Where's Alex?"

"Went for a run," said Sarah. "She said she wanted to get out of this room for a while, and could we please monitor the equipment for her. She's on her way back." The phone rang. "Get that, will you, Casey? And remember to press the yellow button."

Casey picked up the phone, saw Verbanski's name on the screen, with a background photo of her looking all armed and dangerous. It was a good look for her. He pressed the damned yellow damned button. "Miss Verbanski?" he said, dangerously polite.

A man's voice came from the speaker. "I have your boss, so listen up."

_She's not my boss. _"You think you captured the world's most dangerous mercenary?" growled Casey, no longer polite.

"Yeah," said the guy. "Yeah, I did."

Casey said "Tied up, waiting for rescue?" with a double helping of sarcasm.

"Again, correct." Whoever this was, probably that Pedro guy, he tried to take control of the conversation. "You want to see her alive again, you'll bring me ten million in cash, by tonight."

"Nice touch, loser."

"John, I do not authorize any payments, do you hear me?" shouted Gertrude in the background. "I'll handle this myself!"

The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed from the phone. "Bring me my money." The call ended.

"You get that?" asked Casey.

Chuck sighed a negative. "I can tell you it's in the Everglades."

"We knew that already. What about the tracker?"

"He must have pulled the battery, there's nothing."

The door slammed open. "What the hell was that?" asked Alex, standing there in her running outfit, not breathing hard.

"Ransom demand," said Casey automatically. "Wait a minute, how'd you even know–?"

Alex walked up to the table, and snagged her phone. "It's the newest model. Some genius had the idea to put comm broadcasting ability into it." She touched her ear. "I heard everything on the way up. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to call this in." She walked to the bathroom and shut the door.

* * *

><p>Casey was first out of the boat, because he was a Marine, and Marines did that. The coast appeared to be clear, and why wouldn't it be? "Give me the box," he said quietly, and Chuck and Sarah lifted it up. "Carefully."<p>

They passed the large case over to him, before getting out of the boat themselves. Casey unzipped his suit, to reveal…another suit. He was a corporate flunky now, the perfect disguise. "Remember," he said to Chuck, "You've got five minutes after he opens the box, before all hell breaks loose. The code is 'open up'."

"Walk slowly," said Sarah, nodding as she inspected her weapon. "Finding a vantage point in this place won't be easy."

Chuck backed away. "I'll meet you inside." He would rather have stayed, but Casey would soon be standing in a building full of guns, and really, he did not want to be there for that.

* * *

><p>Gertrude hadn't made much headway getting herself loose, there was always someone standing behind her. At least they hadn't shoved that piece of cloth back in her mouth, not that there was anything she wanted to say to soon-to-be-dead men. John Casey would make quick work of these idiots.<p>

"I'm here to make a trade with St. Germaine."

_What the hell is he doing?_ Unarmed? Nice suit, though. And where on Earth did he get ten million from so quickly?

The goons all walked away from her, eager to get closer to the loot, and she was finally free to go for the blade in her belt. John dumped the box on a table and opened it at Pedro's gesture. When it didn't explode, Casey was pushed away from the table as Pedro took over. The first few bundles went into his own pockets. He started counting the rest, as if it mattered how much they'd really brought.

John ended up by Gertrude, on one knee. "Are you all right, Miss Verbanski?" he asked, the loyal flunky.

"John, you shouldn't have come," she said, playing along. "You know they're just gonna kill us both."

"I know," said Casey, his eyes flicking side to side, looking for targets out of the corners of his eyes. "I asked for the job. I couldn't let you die alone. I couldn't let you die without knowing how I felt."

_What kind of game is this?_ "John, this is hardly the time or place–"

Well, she was half right. He could have picked a lot of better places, but the time was just about perfect. "We have no more time, so the place will have to do. I need to _open up_ to you." He paused, as if waiting for something to happen._  
><em>"Please don't."

_What's keeping Sarah?_ "It's too late, Miss Verbanski…Gertrude. It's been too late for years."

She smiled down at him. "Let me guess. '95?"

He nodded, looking anywhere but at her. "Yeah. A long time. _Too long_."

Something was definitely up. She did her bit to keep the charade going. "Maybe you're just too strong for your own good."

"I think opportunity wanted to use the front door, but mine was too well defended. So it had to use the _back window_ instead."

"And now here we are."

Something crashed through the back window. Bullets ripped across the floor, toward the money. Pedro pushed a few of his men in harm's way and fled, leaving the money and the box for a later time. Casey dove for a gun as Chuck took a knife to Verbanski's ropes. "What the hell are you doing here, Charles? I told you, this place is a bloodbath waiting to happen."

Verbanski grabbed another gun.

"Sarah got flash-banged, we had to switch." Chuck sniffed, and went to the table.

"She was supposed to provide cover for our escape," said Casey, taking pot-shots at the low-hanging fruit outside. "What are _you_ gonna do?"

Chuck slammed the lid closed on the box. "I'm distracting the enemy so that we can make our escape before, and I quote, 'all hell breaks loose'."

"Time to go," said Casey.

"We've got no cover," shouted Verbanski.

"You've got the Aegis," said Chuck. "They can't shoot you without letting you shoot them first."

"Believe me, sweetheart," said Casey, "We really need to go _now_."

Together they ran from the building. The bad guys' guns clicked. Casey and Verbanski fired at them, using the simple trick of not shooting at them but at the boxes they hid behind. Strangely, the thugs being shot at didn't notice this tactic, or try to copy it. Like the idiots they were, they ran away, and of course the Aegis had no problem firing at a weapon pointing the other way.

"A good show," yelled Pedro, stepping out with his shotgun ready. Casey and Verbanski tried to shoot, but they were out, and Pedro was too far away for Chuck to get physical, far enough that the blast from his gun would hit them all. "Very entertaining bit of comedy, but now you're cancelled. This gun ain't got no safety." He took aim at Verbanski, standing between her rescuers. His finger flexed on the trigger.

Scorch marks appeared on his shirt, and on his pants, wherever he had pockets. He shouted in sudden pain.

Just then, Sarah arrived with transport, turning Pedro into roadkill. Or maybe not. No one stopped to check. Her teammates jumped on board.

"Cutting it a bit close, aren't you, Charles?"

No windshield wipers, but there was no time to turn around anyway. "Ran into a few obstacles." Putting it in reverse, Sarah drove back over Pedro and right out the gate. Backwards. At night. In a swamp.

"You can slow down now," said Gertrude.

"I don't think so."

Night turned to day, only louder, but Sarah had her head turned away as she drove, and sped up. "That's better."

"Oh," said Casey.

"My," said Gertrude.

"Sarah," said Chuck, "Hurry."

The truck drove off the land and down into the water, as a sheet of flame and superheated air rolled out into the space where they had been. Trees burned as the group climbed out of the sinking truck, heading back to shore.

"What was that?" asked Gertrude. _And where can I _get_ one?_

"That was a ten million dollar money bomb," said Casey happily. "Opened up in the middle of a fuel and ammo dump."

Verbanski's eyes went wide with horror. "That wasn't real money–?"

"Of course not," said the big man. "But nobody does fake money better than the people who make the real money. The paper's highly flammable, the ink reacts to oxygen and combusts, while the case makes C4 look like Play-Doh™."

The fires burned only on the edges, the force of the explosion snuffing them out closer to ground zero. The bare circle was probably visible from orbit. Gertrude sagged. "No bounty tonight."

"Relax," said Casey, untying their little boat, untouched behind an embankment. "You're on the clock again."

Verbanski grunted thoughtfully. "There's still the other part of Pedro's organization. This was just a trap."

"Alex is on it," said Casey.

"You found it already?"

"Chuck did. He can get a signal off a bran muffin, given half a chance."

She looked over at the younger couple contemplatively. "Don't even think about it," said Casey. "He's taken."

She let it go. The bounty would have been better, but subtract the costs of the rescue and it came out pretty much the same. Not to mention the things money couldn't buy. "'Sweetheart'?"

Casey pulled the rope the wrong way, and the knot fouled. "Heat of the moment," he mumbled.

Gertrude stomped over to him, squelching wetly through the mud. "How much of that did you mean back there?"

John pretended to fumble with the knot. "How much of it did you like?"

She reached out a hand and caught his jaw, firm as if carved by Michelangelo himself, and made him look at her. "I liked an awful lot."

He reached up a hand to touch hers, but didn't try to pull it away. "Well…then…that's how much I meant it."

Verbanski pulled him in for a take-no-prisoners kiss.

"Ugh," said Sarah, not even trying to imitate one of Casey's grunts.

Chuck laughed with her. "Yeah." He pulled her out of sight behind a tree, and into his own arms. "Ladyfeelings."

"I thought we liked ladyfeelings," said Sarah. She caught her fingers in his curly, animal-shaped hair and took a few prisoners of her own.

* * *

><p>The skiff purred across the water to the launch site. Casey and Verbanski treated each others' injuries up front. Chuck and Sarah, injury-less, sat in the back, piloting the boat and trying not to look.<p>

The radio started speaking with Alex' voice. "Team B, are you there?"

Casey picked it up. "Roger that, Team Lead. Extraction was successful, no casualties. All present and accounted for."

"You might have said something."

"Thought you might be busy."

"We were," said Alex. "Just mopping up now. Pedro St. Germaine is officially out business. You guys get him?"

"Some of him, but I think the river washed most of it off." Verbanski smiled, the only one who appreciated Casey's unique style of humor.

Alex may have also, but she was Agent McHugh tonight. "You were supposed to take him into custody."

"We didn't have a bucket. Chuck set him on fire and Sarah ran him over with a Humvee. Kind'a limited our options a bit. We did him a favor and left him about ten meters from the box."

"And they call _you_ the violent one?"

Casey winked at his partners. "I know, right?"

"We saw the fireball," said Alex. "It was very pretty."

_That's my girl. _"I think the grill on the truck we stole was singed, but you'd have to pull it out of the river to make sure."

Alex' voice carried no hint of interest, or humor. "As long as you all got out safely."

Some calls are just too close. "Understood."

"I'll see you back at the hotel, B-Lead."

"Affirmative."

* * *

><p>Packing up in Miami…<p>

"So…where are you off to next?" asked Casey.

"Dresden," said Gertrude, breaking her own rules about operational security.

Casey grunted approval. "I like Dresden. Harsh."

"And cold," said Gertrude. "Let's not forget cold. If you were there, we could…tend each others' wounds again. Or something."

Casey grimaced. Or maybe he smiled. It was kind of hard to tell. "Sounds good, but we kind of have a war on…"

Her eyes lit up. "Anything I can help with?"

"A _spy_ war," he clarified.

The world's most dangerous mercenary didn't pout, exactly. "Not a lot of violence in those."

Casey sighed too. "Not if you do it right. Not until the end."

"Our contract ends in two months," said Gertrude hopefully.

"We're under the gun, may not be able to wait that long." With a nod of his head he indicated the room Chuck and Sarah had fled to.

Gertrude nodded. "Understood. Well, until then…" she went to a closet and pulled out a hanger with a garment bag on it.

"Not another one."

"Relax, you big baby. I knew the sweater wasn't your thing."

"Sorry about the trash can," said Casey. "I really wasn't aiming."

She held out the bag. "Try this on for size."

He unzipped the bag and revealed a Verbanski Corp. official bulletproof vest. With the logo and everything. He growled appreciatively.

Gertrude smiled. "For when I'm not there to do the job myself."

* * *

><p>Chuck was saving off the data files when he found it. "Sarah?" he said. "What's this?"<p>

Sarah came up behind him and looked at the screen. Her hands settled on his shoulders. "You know me," she said, with a hint of embarrassment. "I like to plan ahead."

He pointed at the screen, with a list of male names. "For six sons?" He reached up to touch her hands.

"I never planned for _any_ sons," whispered Sarah. "Never expected them, never hoped for them. And now…here I am. I have a husband, a house. A baby."

He tilted his head back, looking up into her smiling, tear-streaked face. "A normal life."

Her face settled, firmed, and for a second he saw Agent Walker staring down at him. "Not yet," she said. Then she was his Sarah again. "But soon."

* * *

><p>Eventually, back in Washington…<p>

Morgan tried, he really did, but the stupid champagne cork just would not–

Alex grabbed the bottle and whacked it against the table. _Pop!_ One of the waiters caught the cork before it could do any damage, but no one noticed.

Morgan took the bottle smoothly, and poured for them both. "Here's to you," he said when he was finished, lifting his glass. "And a very successful first mission."

Alex tasted her champagne, and said, "Alright, Morgan. Out with it."

"Moi?" he said in faux-surprise. "Out with what?"

"You've been looking like the cat who swallowed the canary since I got back."

"Before that, actually, you just weren't here to see it. And, as it turns out, I do have some news of my own, not as big as yours, of course–" he put his hand over hers and shook it gently "–but still pretty big to those of us in this particular small pond. You remember our trip to Vail, all those parties we went to and the cards I handed out? Well it turns out at least one of those cards made its way into the right hands. We got a visit from a genuine celebrity. Bo Derek was right here! In my restaurant! Just last night."

Alex looked confused. "Bo Derek? Have I heard of her?"

Much as Morgan wished Chuck and his team could be here to share her glory, he was glad his best friend was off saving the world somewhere and didn't hear that. "That poster in my closet that you think I don't know you know about? That's Bo Derek. And she was right here!" said Morgan in triumph. "And she even said that she'd be back, with friends. She wanted to meet me, personally!" He beamed. "How cool is that?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **The scene where Chuck looks up and sees Agent Walker looking down at him is _**not**_ a reference to Amnesia Sarah. She's just got a very determined look on her face.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N** Here begins my rewrite of Chuck vs. Bo. It's a good thing I'm not trying to come up with titles for each individual episode anymore, I don't know what I'd call this one. Thanks to tut1971 for helping me with a couple of scenes.

* * *

><p>"<em>How can you insult a mercenary?"<em>

"_The code is 'open up'." _

"_I have a husband, a house."_

"_How cool is that?"_

* * *

><p>Ellie was never so happy to see anything as when she stepped through the doorway into her own house, carrying her child in her arms. Her parents were there, they had returned, now it was her brother who was gone. "Welcome home, Clara."<p>

"Yeah, it's a stellar sign, isn't it?" said Devon, holding the door open for her. He pointed, and she saw a banner over her favorite chair, that said _Welcome Home, Clara_ in bright colors. The whole room had been cleaned, and food prepared. "Nice work, Mom and Dad B."

"Thank you, dear," said Mary, "But it was pleasure, not work." She looked at her daughter and granddaughter. "I'd ask you how you're feeling, Ellie, but I think you've probably heard that enough."

Ellie didn't exactly smile. "Oh, yes." The unusual nature of her case had the obstetrician, the pediatrician, and even that guy Doug hovering and testing. In Doug's case she was pretty sure it was just political, and she was happy to support him in that at the beginning, but eventually she had to put her foot down. "I think I gave Doug enough blood to _write_ the damn paper."

"Hey, babe, he needs the publication credit if he wants to keep his job," said Devon, collecting her coat.

"So tell me," said Ellie, dragging the conversation away from where it had been the last few days of her life, "What's been going with everybody out here? All I know is that Carina finally got the call?" She moved to her chair and sat down.

"Actually, we're sort of hoping that you can tell us, dear," said Mary, as Stephen went to get her some food and Devon started taking pictures. "They aren't saying anything to me, of course, and I'm really trying to get Stephen out of 'renegade spy' mode." She suddenly glared at her husband. "Really, Stephen, what were you thinking?"

The genius-formerly-known-as-Orion raised his hand, the one not holding the plate. "Hey, blame Roarke, don't blame me. I would've been glad to stay in our basement." He set the plate on the table so his daughter could use it one-handed.

"I'd rather blame someone alive," said Mary, but then she caught the pained expression on her daughter's face. "I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to ruin your homecoming."

"Mom, just the fact that you and Dad are here to argue makes this a wonderful day," said Ellie, resolving to discuss business with the General from here on out. "Chuck really fixed our family."

The word _almost_ hung in the air, but this was supposed to be a happy occasion, so they ignored it. "Would anyone like a glass of wine?" asked Stephen, a bit early in the day for it but how often does one's first grandchild come home? Mary seconded the motion, and he went to the sideboard.

"Hey, babe, how about a nice baby-smoothie, instead?" suggested Devon. "Some milk for calcium and Vitamin D, a few eggs for the DHA, and a banana for the potassium. Sound good?"

"Thanks, honey," said Ellie with a smile. Anything was an improvement on hospital food, especially now that Chuck had broken him of his roadkill-shake habit.

Mom and Dad shared a glance. "You know what, that does sound good," said Stephen, putting down the corkscrew. "Let's all have some."

"Outstanding," said Devon, with his trademark grin. He put down the camera and went into the kitchen.

"So, Ellie, have you been keeping track of Clara's vital statistics like I suggested?" asked Mary, and Stephen went into the kitchen to help.

* * *

><p>That afternoon, in the swamp…<p>

"So what are you going to do with these two?" asked Carina, looking into the car. Two men sat in the front, unconscious, apparently from an impact with a large tree.

"Depends on what they were doing," said Casey, reaching in through the window to search the guy without moving him around too much.

"Running away from a pitched battle with federal officers, from the look of it," said Carina, doing the same on the other side. The battle was over, but the mopping up would take a very long time. Pedro St. Germaine had been a central link in the flow of guns and drugs into and out of the Southeastern U.S., but not anymore. Now he was air pollution, dead in his own trap, leaving his main facility (using the word loosely) ripe for the plucking.

That wasn't part of the plan, actually, and the Powers that were in charge of the FBI side of things weren't thrilled. Hard to trace a guy's distribution network when it didn't exist anymore, so Chuck had to be clever again.

"Take it easy with the pat-down," said Casey, as Carina's investigation of the male body got more vigorous. "We don't want to have to tranq them again." Bad enough they'd had to do so last night, but the intel at the compound trumped a couple of goons. Especially when Chuck thought he could use the goons.

"Got something," said Carina, working her way ever further down the man's torso.

"I know what you've got," said Casey, trying hard not to look. "And you'd better put it back before that boy–"

"Casey!"

"–friend of yours finds out."

"You have a dirty and lascivious mind, John Casey," sneered Carina, loosening the guy's belt and reaching into his pants. She pulled out a manila envelope, folded over but unsealed.

"'Lascivious'?"

"Davis has one of those word-a-day calendars. I think he likes upgraded banter too."

Casey prayed for strength. Or a muzzle in her size, whichever came first. "What's in it?"

"Three hundred sixty four words with accompanying defini–oh, you mean the…thing." She popped it open and reached inside. "One cell phone, and…another cell phone."

_Jackpot_. "You keep those, and here." He held up a smaller device, as she put the phones in her pocket. "We'll let them carry on with whatever they were doing." He dropped the flash drive into the envelope without having to actually, you know, touch it.

"I think he'll notice that his package has gotten smaller, Casey. Men can be sensitive that way."

"This is the upgraded version, huh?" Sounded just like the old banter.

"Why waste the good stuff on _you_?"

_How about strong, _and_ a muzzle._ "Just put it back, Miller." He pulled a little flat spray case from his pocket.

Carina had to think about what she was doing. She'd never helped a man put his clothes on before. She recognized the sprayer, at least. "What's In that?"

"Twilight juice, a bit more concentrated than the darts." Casey sprayed the atomized liquid into the two men's noses. "These guys will forget the last several hours, assume it's because of the crash, and deliver what they'll think is their boss' package, none the wiser."

"What if you just erased their memory of who they're supposed to give it to?"

"Then he'll come looking for them. Either way, not our problem."

"Works for me." Carina pulled out a special gun and fired twice, once into each unconscious thug's leg.

"What's that for?" asked Casey.

"Not so much fun, being left out of the plan, is it, Casey?" She displayed the gun but didn't hand it over. "Manoosh gave it to me before I came down."

He reached over the top of the car for it. "Looks like a water pistol."

She pulled it back. "That's just the shell, it's experimental. Vivian put a tracker in Chuck, now he's returning the favor."

Casey shook his head, disappointed. "She'll be ready for that, everyone she sees will be scanned long before they get to her, like Sarah was."

"Good," said Carina.

"Good?"

Manoosh spoke geek, she didn't. "I think it works that way, you'd have to ask Chuck."

"It'll tag them all the way to Volkoff?"

"Depends on how many times they get scanned. It should give us a few more links in the chain, at least, even though–"

"We only need the next one."

* * *

><p>Sarah woke to a soft thump. Throwing off her blanket, she rolled off the bed so as not to disturb Chuck. Yawning, she walked to the door and opened it, looking down. No Newspaper.<p>

Big box of guns, being carried by two strong young soldiers, talk about a rude awakening. She'd just made a mistake in a business where most people only get one. "Sorry, Agent Charles," said the younger of the soldiers. "The other agent said we're supposed to let you sleep, but this one got away from us a little bit…"

"Uh, that's…you know what, that's fine, it's about time I was getting up anyway," Sarah said, forcing a smile. "You wouldn't happen to know where I can find the other agent, would you?"

His hands full, the young man indicated a direction with a toss of his head before he and his partner took their burden away. Sarah closed the door, leaning against it. A couch, not a bed, sat against one wall, with a light blanket on the floor. Not a bed. Some dead criminal's office, not a home.

On the plus side, she hadn't opened up the door to that soldier while dressed only in lingerie.

_I have to get out of this business._ This life, this world. The only life and world she knew, except for the Chuck-related parts, and she really liked being related to those parts. Dinners for three. Beds for two.

Crib for one.

She looked down at the folded blanket in her hands, with no memory of how she'd gotten over to the couch, picked it up, or folded it. The doorknob rattled, and she quick-twisted the blanket into a garrote as Chuck opened the door and walked in.

"I want to quit spying," she said quickly, letting one end of the garrote fall.

Chuck stopped, with the door half-shut. "Okay," he said, finishing the job. "Not what I was expecting..."

Sarah threw the folded blanket on the couch and stomped over to him. "I wasn't expecting anything either. I just opened the door in my underwear!"

"You had clothes on over them, Sarah, I saw you–"

"It's not funny," she shouted. "I was half asleep, I thought I was in bed at home, and I went to get the paper. What if that had been a terrorist outside the door, instead of that nice soldier?"

_No secrets, no lies. _"You'd be dead," said Chuck, taking her into his arms. "But, I think you should consider that you've got me, and Casey, and Carina, here with you." He let go a little, to look into her face. "You've got the FBI, and a bunch of soldiers collecting weapons from bad guys who are all dead. If you really, truly, honestly thought that an armed terrorist on the other side of the door was a possibility, you would have taken the right precautions."

Sarah wished he was wearing a tie right now, something she could hold on to. She focused on his top button. "So…you're saying…I felt safe."

"You felt safe." He kissed her on the tip of her nose.

She held him so tightly his heartbeat vibrated through her. "I never feel safe." Not on the outside, at least.

"Well, you do now." He indicated the couch. "Sit. We need to talk."

* * *

><p>Morgan Grimes strolled into his domain, his realm, his restaurant. The patrons came first, of course, and Morgan was ever vigilant for signs of dissatisfaction from what he'd come to think of as <em>his<em> crowd. The sound, that soft even murmur of people more concerned with each other than the venue, told him everything he needed to know. There was Sam at his podium, efficiently distributing the patronage among the efficient and smiling wait staff.

"Evening, Mr. Grimes."

"Evening, Sam, and as usual it looks like a _good_ evening."

"We aim to please, sir."

"Then you and all your people qualify for marksman badges, Sam, you all hit the target so well."

"Thank you, sir," said Sam, who currently held a sharpshooter medal with two clasps. He didn't wear it, that would be gauche. "Oh, hey," he said, as if just remembering. "This came for you today." He popped up the lid on his station and pulled out a box.

"Why would anyone send something to me here?" asked Morgan, unaware that Sam was wondering the same thing. With a key, Morgan slit the tape and opened the package. "Hey, it's my phone!" he said excitedly, pulling the object out of the box. "I thought I lost it in Colorado."

"On your vacation?" asked Sam, as casually as he could, which was pretty casual. "Why would they send it here?"

Morgan felt something on the back, and flipped the phone over. Taped on the bottom was a business card. "I was handing out cards right and left. Whoever found it must have put two and two together." He put the phone in his pocket. "I wonder who it was. Be nice to say thanks."

* * *

><p>In the lot across the street from the restaurant, a man sitting in a car parked in the shadows put down a pair of binoculars. He checked his own phone, and the picture of Morgan's face that he'd taken remotely with the camera function of the phone in Morgan's hand. Not a bad plan, all things considered, although putting the tech together at the last minute cut into his profit margin. The place was just crawling with personnel from multiple agencies, though, no way he could show his face inside.<p>

He sent a message to an electronic dropbox, "Package delivered," with the image as proof, as required by his employer.

After a moment he received a response code. _Easy money._ He sent it off to a different account entirely, before taking the phone apart and smashing the pieces. He drove away, already forgetting the name of his target.

* * *

><p>For some reason, even though the office had a couch and some chairs, everyone was standing, drinking bad coffee.<p>

"Quit?" asked Casey, taking a sip and making a face. "Now?"

The pregnant Bartowski took a sip of her own. "Weren't you the one who told me that the time to go out was while I was on top?"

Carina groaned. "Not gonna say it." She drank some coffee just to make sure.

"Thank you," said Chuck, lifting his mug to his lips.

Casey timed it perfectly. "I meant 'in the middle of a mission', Bartowski, I couldn't care less about your sex life."

Chuck sprayed his sip of coffee all over the room.

_That should have been mine. _"Why do I bother?" asked Carina.

"_I_ appreciate it," said Chuck, wiping himself off.

"I'm not abandoning the mission," said Sarah. "It's not just for Ellie, you know. Vivian has Chuck's DNA as well as my own available. I can't go home until I know that that weapon is destroyed."

"And when it's destroyed, and you go home," said Carina. "What next?"

Sarah traced a circle on her belly with a finger. "You know what comes next."

Carina looked unhappy, but not homicidally so. "Then…this is _it_?"

"_Miller_," said Casey suddenly, before Sarah could say anything.

"I'm sorry," said Carina, and the amazing thing was, she meant it. "It just slipped out."

"What just slipped out?" asked Chuck. "'This is it'?"

"Bartowski!" growled Casey. He tried to whack Chuck upside the head, but his mug was in his whacking hand and he wasn't about to waste coffee.

"What's wrong with saying 'this is it'?" asked Chuck. "What's it?"

"Her last mission, idiot," snapped Casey. "We don't talk about those."

"Casey!" said Sarah and Carina together.

"Blame clueless here," said the Colonel, hiding behind his mug.

"Chuck," said Sarah, while Carina just reached across and planted a fillip on his ear.

"Ow!"

Sarah turned her angry expression on her best (female) (spy) friend. "Carina!"

The redhead stepped back. "I'm just doing what Casey said."

"_Casey…_" Sarah reached for her knives.

"Sarah," said Chuck, putting a hand on her throwing arm. "I'm not clueless, I've seen Last Action Hero. It's my fault.'

Sarah kicked him in the shin, lightly.

"Ow," said Chuck again.

"Dumbass," said his wife.

"Can we look at the phones now please?" said Casey, in genuine pain.

"Hmm, yes," said Chuck loudly. "By all means, let's do our jobs."

"Thank God," said Carina, putting her mug down. "It's not like I want to drink any more of this swill..." She reached into her left pocket and brought out a cell phone. "We found this on the driver."

Chuck barely gave it a glance. "That's the mate to the phone Alex had at the hotel," he said. "Must be the one Verbanski had. Probably how I found this place."

"It's got no battery," said Carina. "How could even you get a signal?"

"New tech," said Chuck. "According to the schematics, it has a booster battery, for broadcast purposes. Save it. We'll have to make sure it gets back to the FBI." As Carina put it back in her pocket, he said, "Casey said phones, plural. I assume there's at least one more?"

Carina pulled a different phone from her other pocket and handed it across.

"No battery either," said Chuck, weighing it in his hand, "But it's the same model as mine." He didn't keep the battery in the phone, of course, so all he had to do was open up the mystery phone and slip his battery inside, turning it on. After an eternity, in electronic terms, the screen lit up. "Uh-oh."

"What's 'uh-oh', Bartowski?"

"This is Morgan's phone." Chuck turned the phone to show them. "He put My Little Pony into a Super Mario Bros. background and made that his desktop."

"Put that away, Bartowski," said Casey, wincing. "That's a crime against humanity."

Chuck turned the phone back around and double-clicked the button, calling all the most recently used apps. "Mail. Clock. Here we go, video."

"A video of what?" asked Casey, as they gathered around to see the screen.

"Let's find out." Chuck pressed 'Play'.

Morgan's face was in the screen, strangely enough, along with another guy that none of them recognized. He was wearing an apron, and the background looked like a deli. "_Are we on_?" said Morgan, to whoever held the phone. "_Okay, well, here we are, with Stan of Stan's Deli, and we, I, have just made a deal that will put this place on the map! I have given Stan the secret recipe for the single greatest deli sandwich ever made. If he sells a hundred of them by the time I leave, I get all of my sandwiches no charge, otherwise, I pay full price plus ten percent. Stan, is that the deal?_" The guy in the apron nodded.

"Oh dear," said Chuck.

"That poor man," said Sarah.

The video continued. "_So, now, here, officially, in front of these witnesses_–" Morgan gestured, and the image moved dizzyingly, to show a bunch of people looking on at his antics before coming back to the center of the action "–_the sandwich challenge begins. And I gotta tell you, Stan, that I am gonna win this challenge. I'll have a hundred people down here in an hour_."

"He will, too," muttered Casey, sipping his swill. "You can't stop him when there's food involved." Carina nodded.

The video continued. "_I'll be talking this sandwich up one side of Vail and down the other_."

"He gets pretty passionate about his food," agreed Chuck.

Casey grunted assent. "He said it was his favorite from his Buy More days."

Chuck's head came up. "Oh no."

The video continued. "_By the time I'm done, the only name that will be on everybody's lips in all of Vail, will be the name of, drumroll please, the _Chuck Bartowski."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **That was quick.

The Last Action Hero has a little scene in it where a policeman gets caught in a bomb blast and dies, saying, "Two days to retirement." The movie makes fun of a lot of clichés in the Action genre, starting with that one.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N I wanted to post this on Saturday, but the failure of a server and the fact that the chapter wasn't done until last night conspired against me. I'm not thrilled with it but I don't know if I ever will be. there isn't a lot of material in Bo to work with. A wasteful and inane piece of stuntcasting, if you ask me, especially since Ms. Derek spends most of it undressing Morgan. I'm trying to keep her out of this story completely.**

**We also pick up the introduction of Nicholas Quinn where we left off last season. **

* * *

><p>"<em>Welcome home, Clara."<em>

"_I just opened the door in my underwear!"_

"_You know what comes next." _

"_You can't stop him when there's food involved." _

* * *

><p>Somewhere in the Everglades, two men came to their senses, slowly. The driver was first, when a snake crawled over his arm. He would have moved more, but the pain in his head stopped him, and so he narrowly avoided being bitten. "<em>Madre de Dios<em>." He grabbed the snake behind the head and used its twisting body to whack his partner across the face, before tossing the reptile out the window. The snake, not the partner.

The guy in the passenger seat woke screaming. Maybe he had snake issues.

"Quiet, you fool," said the driver. "They have passed us by. We need to get out of here before they come back for us."

"Here?" asked the other man, looking around. If you don't already know where you are, one piece of swamp looks a lot like any other piece of swamp. "Where is here? Where were we going?"

The driver was reluctant to admit he knew no more than his partner, and made an effort to try to remember anything that would satisfy his ego. As he shifted his position, he felt the thick paper of the envelope he kept hidden in his pants. "We have a package to deliver for the boss, idiot. How could you forget such a thing?" He tried the key in the ignition, never thinking about who might have turned the car off in the first place.

* * *

><p>"Miss Volkoff, I heard shots," said Mr. Carmichael, stepping out of the stairwell, pistol trained on Nicholas Quinn. "Who is this man?"<p>

"An ally, Mr. Carmichael, more loyal to me than Mr. Riley here proved to be." Vivian stepped back and indicated her fallen advisor with the gun she held in her hand. "So put your pistol away and take care of this mess, while I confer with Mr. Quinn."

She gestured toward the damaged door to her office. She and Quinn stepped over the body and walked away, leaving Mr. Carmichael to ponder which branch of the household had this responsibility.

Vivian walked straight to her desk, leaving it to her guest to close the door and right a chair to sit in. "Why do I smell melted plastic?" he asked.

"You've a keen nose, Mr. Quinn," said Vivian, seating herself behind the desk. She put the gun down, not facing her visitor's chair directly. "I can only smell the gunpowder." Quinn waited patiently. "A message from an enemy, Mr. Quinn, the kind that destroys not only itself but the computer on which it was played. My man was disposing of it when Riley decided to reveal his true colors." She picked up her letter opener, lying on the desk, and wiped the blood off of it with a tissue before putting it back in its place.

"I understand your anger, Miss Volkoff," said Quinn, noticing the new scar in her desktop. "I've experienced a betrayal or two myself."

"My condolences."

"Miss Volkoff, this isn't a social visit," said Quinn, not wanting her sympathy. He'd cut out the hooks of trust long ago, and he wasn't about to let them catch on him again, under any guise. "The people I represent believe, for reasons unknown to me, that their interests and yours coincide. They are inviting you to meet with them."

"Where?"

"In the United States."

She gusted out a laugh. "Mr. Quinn, I just received a very direct and personal threat from the single greatest agent America has, possibly the greatest on the planet." She didn't notice Quinn's face get any stonier as she continued, "I can assure you that while he is out in the world trying to destroy me, his allies will be keeping watch for me on his home ground." A classic ploy.

"For you alone, perhaps," said Quinn. "But you're not alone anymore, and my employers, like myself, are very capable of keeping what they want hidden, hidden." Certainly he'd never heard of the group Decker claimed to speak for, until Decker spoke to him. "At one time not too long ago, _I_ was the single greatest agent America had, too." Not that he'd earned it. Daniel Shaw's obsessions had left a vacuum at the top. "Destined for great things, but a traitor took my destiny from me, and they sent me back out into the world. I was captured, I was tortured." Rage twisted his face. "I was disavowed, left to rot for over a year in a hole. _In a hole!"_

The shout appeared to take them both by surprise, and he took a second to get himself together.

"And now you're a messenger?" asked Vivian.

"I have an organization in America," snarled Quinn. No, he was not her friend, not anyone's. "Until recently I had one in Europe as well. My current employers are taking advantage of a moment of relative weakness, that's all. I will have my destiny."

She couldn't care less about his 'destiny'. "What happened to your team in Europe, Mr. Quinn?" _Can you really protect me, Mr. Quinn?_

"Several of my clients gathered for a meeting, I was tasked with security. That security was penetrated by the CIA, and my primaries were killed. Worse, someone had evidence of my own involvement, some redheaded bitch named Miller. I sent my team after her, but only after she passed her evidence to someone else, named Rizzo, and I had to go after her myself. I got Rizzo, but the team I sent after Miller never returned."

Vivian didn't doubt that for a moment. "Carina Miller works for Agent Charles," she said. Quinn may not be her friend, but if she could make him her enemy's enemy that would do just as well. "Who did you say penetrated your clients' meeting?"

"I didn't say," said Quinn. "It was an agent named Walker. Sarah Walker." _With your father's help._

"She works for Agent Charles, too."

"I want her." _ The things she could do, under _my_ control!_ He would control her, if he could get her away from Agent Charles for even just a minute. Then, with her in hand, he could destroy Charles and bring his destiny full circle.

_You can have her, for all of me. _Agent Miller was at that meeting? She had to be, to get evidence of Quinn. How did she know? Frost, or Charles? No matter, for her purposes it had to be him. "It appears we have a common enemy, Mr. Quinn." Nicholas Quinn would be her enemy as well, if he ever learned of her father's involvement, and her own. "Only his name isn't really Charles."

* * *

><p>On the way back to DC…<p>

"Anything, Casey?"

John had lost the coin toss, so he was the one flipping through the photo roll on Morgan's phone. "Just the world's biggest collection of selfies. And what is that on his head?"

"Let me see." Carina took a close look at the tiny screen. "Oh my god, fake dreadlocks?"

The real ones weren't bad enough? "How could he stoop so low?"

"Not to mention being on the bunny trail," said Carina, pointing to a sign in the background. "Those kids could be scarred for life."

"Please," said Casey, looking at the overweight, overbundled blobs of dough she was calling kids. "Those yuppie larva could use a good scarring, that's what life's all about. You get hit, you scar. You fall down, you get up again. If you do it right, eventually you turn into a real person, worth having around." Instead of pampered aristos who won't ever be interesting in their entire lives. He flipped a finger, dismissing the lot of them.

"You've been a parent for what? A year?"

Like he needed a reminder. "If I'd wrapped Alex in bubble wrap all her life, or Kath, you think she'd be what she is now? You can protect your kids too much, you know?"

Carina's face went utterly, horribly still, for a bit. "No, Casey, I don't know. I never will."

_Good move, dumb-ass! _won out over _But how was I to know? _since the latter was just too whiny to listen to, even alone in his own head. "Sorry," said Casey, and he was. He'd been a father for a year, and already he couldn't imagine a life without Alex in it. He could remember a time when he neither had a daughter, or even the possibility of a daughter, but he didn't want to think about those days. Those were the only days Carina had.

"Don't be," said Carina, her face coming alive again. "You didn't know, and anyway it sounds too creepy coming from you."

Casey discovered a new use for his grunts, filling in a space where he didn't know what to say.

* * *

><p>Chuck and Sarah strolled through the airport concourse in Colorado hand in hand, vapid smiles on their faces while behind dark shades their eyes moved ceaselessly, panning for enemies. Every so often one or the other of them would move their fingers 1-2-1-2, except one time when they both tried to do it simultaneously, and their smiles became a little less vapid.<p>

"How are you feeling?" asked Chuck.

"Exposed and endangered," said Sarah, her smile edging on plastic.

"So, same as usual?"

Brittle plastic. "Do you remember how Casey felt, putting on his dress uniform for the first time in a long while, to walk me down the aisle?"

When he thought about the wedding, Chuck remembered a vision in white, but if he worked at it he could make his perfect memory look a little bit sideways to the man on whose arm she walked. "I remember he said it felt like it had shrunk."

"It didn't shrink, Chuck, he got larger. Looser. Just like I have." She squeezed his hand. _Like I will._ "I could feel it, as we drove away from that compound, like a spy suit that I'd managed to take off for a while and had to put back on again. Familiar but not comfortable."

Suddenly Chuck had an image in his head of a wardrobe, with a suit of armor in it, named Carmichael. A shout of _"You don't need me!" _rang in his memory. He shook his head at the sudden double apparition of sight and sound.

"Did you just flash?" asked Sarah.

"No," he said, holding her hand tightly. "No, just a…memory. A dream. A memory of a dream. Spy suits and armor."

Sarah remembered reading those reports, and laughed. "Here I was going to ask if you knew what I meant, and it seems I finally managed to understand what _you_ meant."

"My condolences."

"No, Chuck," she said, pulling on his hand to make him stop. She lifted her other hand to his cheek. "We shouldn't be sad, we should be grateful. I should be grateful, and I am. How can I remove something I don't even know I'm wearing?" She liked having enemies she could fight.

On their way out of the building they passed another couple coming in, intently discussing their business trip, to the point where they didn't even notice Chuck or Sarah. The man bumped into Chuck, and only Sarah's firm grip kept her husband on his feet. The man also helped to steady him, apologizing profusely for the incident, and the two couples parted ways.

Chuck lifted his hand to adjust his glasses.

"Well?" asked Sarah, when they were well away.

Chuck pointed to a car rental agency, and they headed that way as he put his hands in his pockets, where he left the note he'd gotten from the other agent. "Mr. and Mrs. Michael Carmichael have reservations at the Golden Peak Resort in Vail."

"Michael Carmichael?" said Sarah, both outraged and amused. "Whose idea was that? What parents named Carmichael would name a son Michael?"

"The idea was probably Carina's, and you should really count your blessings," said Chuck. "Otherwise Michelle would probably be _your_ name, instead of my imaginary mother's."

Sarah was lost. "Your who?"

"My–" Chuck stopped himself. "You _did_ hear about what happened in Marrakesh, right?"

* * *

><p>"You want me to do <em>what<em> with these?" asked Manoosh, flipping through the images on the phone. "I thought the Intersect was supposed to help the Host interpret _intelligence_."

Casey grunted with amusement. "You should have known him before. This is the improved version."

"Casey…" said Carina tiredly.

"How am I lying?"

"Holy Hoth System, Batman," said Manoosh. "Check out the cold-weather gear on that babe!"

Casey had his hand on the littler man's shoulder–_Grimes has no business hanging around with _babes–and was pulling him away from the screen before he realized who the 'babe' in question had to be. "Oh, her," he said dismissively. "She's in a lot of these."

"What is she, his ski instructor? They always have the hot ones in those places," said Manoosh, trying to get a better look. "I think I could use a vacation myself."

Casey pulled back harder. How can such smart people be so stupid? "That's his girlfriend, numb-nuts."

"Yeah, right. That Neanderthal couldn't score a _Homo Superior_ like her if he saved the President," sneered Manoosh. "And besides, that's not how evolution works. You've been watching too much Land That Time Forgot…"

"He served with her father, honorably," said Casey, tightening his grip. "Saved his life at least once, and earned two commendations for valor."

Manoosh tried to drop out of the painful hold without success. "That's just luck."

"True. But you know what's _not_ luck?" Casey let go. "Selling secret advanced technology to the highest bidder, that's not luck."

"That wasn't me," said Manoosh, rubbing his shoulder as he backed away. "That was an alternate reality version of me."

Casey grunted noncommittally, and Carina stepped in to save him. Not that she minded him looking stupid occasionally, but that was a partner thing. In front of the assets a bit of solidarity was called for. "Well, how about the current reality version of you get started on the upload? The sooner Chuck gets it the sooner we can get back to our mission."

Manoosh shrugged. "Don't know what your rush is, you still have to get the glasses to him."

"He's got glasses," said Carina. "You had them out on the table, so I snagged them."

A pair on the table? _Why were–?_ Casey cleared his throat imperatively and Manoosh clicked the mouse to start the encryption.

Something about glasses. "You gave him a pair for the download, didn't you?"

* * *

><p>The desk clerk at the Golden Peak had a package for Mr. Carmichael. In the privacy of their room, Sarah attached a ticker to the window as Chuck opened the package, taking out a computer. His bag had a set of cables, while the glasses were hidden in plain sight. Sarah plugged the earpieces into the cable connections, as Chuck set up a secure connection with the network.<p>

Sarah handed him the business end of the cable connector, so that he could plug into the machine and pull the upload as soon as it was available. Sarah's phone started to ring as they sat waiting, so she took her phone away to listen to whatever the caller–Carina–had to say.

The bar reached one hundred percent and Chuck plugged in.

Sarah heard the sound and turned back. "Chuck, wait a minute."

"Too late," he said. Once the upload started they couldn't stop it without forcing Manoosh to regenerate the whole thing, which wasn't a big deal, but the glasses would be ruined, and they only had one pair. "Is there a problem?"

Sarah put the phone away. "Manoosh just reminded her that we didn't have a download pair. We have to hold off the upload until we can remove it again."

"Oh." Chuck looked at the hookup. Inconvenient, but nothing to be done about it now. They'd just have to rely on good old-fashioned spy work until their teammates could get there from DC with a download pair. Not a bad thing, keep them in practice. "Not a problem. Once it's done we'll just have the hotel store them in the vault."

* * *

><p>Casey moved his finger over the screen, pretending to be interested in the photos. "I just hope there's something useful in all these, make the pain of having Morgan's life in his head worth it."<p>

"I think this is the part where Alex would say 'Dad', but since she's not here I'll have to do it." She glared at her partner. "_Casey_. You better learn to be nicer to Morgan, I get the feeling he's going to be in your life for a long time."

She sounded snarky and superior. _That's more like it. _"Can't be as bad as uploading the video, when you see as much as Chuck does."

"Chuck won't be looking at Morgan, Casey, he'll be looking at everything around Morgan. Aside from spewing the name of his favorite sandwich all over town while somehow managing to forget in the heat of the contest that it was the name of an international agent who also happens to be his best friend…" Carina paused to take a breath. "Where was I?"

"You were about to say that he's very loyal to Chuck." And honest, although that might just be stupidity.

"Right, he's very loyal to Chuck, so he's the one thing Chuck won't be paying attention to. If I can see the opportunity Morgan created, you can be sure Agent Charles has. We've got some cheese on the ground in Colorado, now all we have to do is build a trap around it.'

* * *

><p>"A sandwich?" asked Vivian. "Named for America's foremost agent? What an absurd idea."<p>

"Absurd or not, it appears to be the case," said Quinn, scanning the report. "A trip to Colorado might be in order."

"It's almost certainly a trap."

"I see no signs of it."

"Then it has to be. The only traps Agent Charles makes are the ones you can't see."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 Lots of family stuff, and a few plot points that hopefully you won't see until the time comes, and then you'll, "Ah, of course..."**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N** Maybe it's because I'm reposting season 1, but I find myself harking back to a lot of my early Chuck ideas. Not that that's a bad thing.

* * *

><p>"<em>Why do I smell melted plastic?"<em>

"_It appears we have a common enemy."_

"_I should be grateful, and I am." _

"_What an absurd idea." _

* * *

><p>Vivian Volkoff looked at her wardrobe with distaste. The items were all clean and well-mended, if mended at all. Which was not much, her life had never been particularly stressful on clothes, and her funds had always been sufficient to allow her to trade in old for new when needed. Trading in new for old grated.<p>

Not a power suit in the lot.

Vivian Volkoff was _persona non grata_ in the United States, but Vivian MacArthur was a nonentity. She could travel freely, and attend meetings in out-of-the-way venues with other low-level executives of unknown companies. Odd that such freedom could feel so confining, or perhaps that was just the price of power.

That price had just risen sharply. Her father had lived, perpetually aware of an Agent X that would someday destroy him, but he at least had the luxury of never knowing who or where that Agent was, or when he would strike. God _damn_ Riley! His fault that Vivian had no such blissful ignorance. Thanks to him, her doom was now actively stalking her. Already she was getting reports of facilities lost, key personnel dead, shipments missing. Agent Charles had no reason to spare her, and less reason to be quick or merciful about it.

He should have struck first, struck hard. Perhaps he didn't think she would diminish herself this way. If so it was his first mistake.

She needed allies, so she folded herself into her old clothes to get some. "Are you ready, Mr. Carmichael?" He'd better be. She'd not spend a single instant in this dowdy get-up longer than she had to.

He appeared in the doorway, looking not very different at all, the freedom of powerlessness. He would be believable as her associate, rather than her servant. "Yes, Miss Vol–I mean, Miss MacArthur."

Good. He not only remembered who she was supposed to be, he knew who she still was. "Get Mr. Quinn, and we'll be off."

* * *

><p>Somewhere in Colorado, dark, warm, and finally still…<p>

"And that is why I prefer to travel from East to West on these missions of ours," said Chuck, as they lay in bed, catching their breaths.

"You prefer your delight in the pre-dawn hours, Mr. Carmichael?"

"Hell yes, Mrs. Carmichael," said Chuck, "Always get the most important things done first."

She rolled over to partially cover him, murmuring happily. "Rainbows…"

"And besides," continued his mouth on its own, "More often than not we're treating our injuries or soaking in the tub at night, kind of kills the mood, if you ask me."

"Hmm, I don't know," said Sarah, her hands wandering. "I seem to recall a few memorable massages."

"Ah!" said Chuck loudly at something she did under the covers. "Again? Is this a pregnancy thing?" He'd heard rumors to that effect.

She chuckled softly in his ear. "I'd say it's a naked-husband-comfy-bed thing, early in the day with no one to–"

The phone buzzed.

Chuck's head fell back on his pillow. "Woman, when will you learn to keep your mouth shut?"

_Zzzz._

She raised herself up, looking down on him. "Shut? I thought you liked it when I–"

_Zzzz._

Breasts. Phone. Breasts. Phone. Chuck covered his eyes. "Shoot me now."

_Zzzz._

"Bang." Sarah put her hand on the phone, but didn't pick it up. "Casey or Morgan?"

No hesitation. "Casey, of course." Morgan could only focus on one shiny thing at a time, and right now that was Alex. Good for Alex, better for them.  
>Sarah picked up the phone. Chuck watched her school her features into her standard professional mask, the one she only took off for him. "Hey partner, what's up?"<p>

* * *

><p>"Mr. Clyde Decker," said Quinn, "Miss Vivian MacArthur, as promised." The other two men in the room weren't introduced to anybody. The short scarred man glared at Mr. Carmichael with undisguised hostility.<p>

Mr. Decker, if that was his real name, looked even less comfortable in his not-so-expensive suit than she was. He handed a folder to Miss Volkoff's escort. "Mr. Quinn, your destiny awaits, as promised." Quinn snatched the folder and moved out of earshot as Decker turned to his guests. "Miss MacArthur, do you know who your associate is?" He didn't offer to shake hands, or even nod his head.

She felt welcome. "Yes, I do, Mr. Decker. Do you?" She sat, and they followed suit. Anybody watching would think they were all courteous gentlemen. Tommy handed Decker a ticker and he set it on the table as Vivian said, "Mr. Carmichael–"

"Carmichael?"

"–has been in my service since I went to Macau to claim my father's assets. He's immensely valuable to me, so I would prefer if you kept your hands away from your guns, please."

Decker clasped his hands in front of him, clearing his throat gruffly at Tommy to do likewise. "Our apologies, Miss Macarthur, but Agent Carmichael was legendary for working through others."

"It sounds like he's dead."

"That could be one of his ploys."

"That's as may be, but this man is _my_ man, is that clear?"

"Crystal," said Decker, who only saw what he wanted to see. "Shall we get on with the purpose of this meeting?"

"If you would."

"The people I represent have been working behind the scenes for years, building an infrastructure to unite and solidify the economies of the world in a single set of hands. Their hands." Somehow he managed to say that without sounding silly.

Vivian started to rise. "I've seen the movie, Mr. Decker. It never ends well."

"We wrote the movie, Miss Volkoff," said Decker. She stood, waiting for more, so he gave it to her. "We go to considerable effort to make it look as stupid, or as difficult, as possible, so that no one who thought about it at all would believe how easily it could be done. But we live in a world of illusion, a virtual world, that most people are all too happy to take for truth. Power belongs to those who don't. We are offering you a share in that power."

How very nice of them. She sat again. "In exchange for what?"

He seemed embarrassed. "At the moment, money will do quite nicely."

She laughed. "World domination within your grasp, yet you hesitate to rob a bank?"

Decker's hand moved, touching a folded copy of some local newspaper. Most likely a prop; she couldn't imagine him caring about any of the stories it had to tell. "Bank robbers get noticed, Vivian, but world domination is so much easier when no one is aware of it, even after it's happened. Until recently we had our own sources of funding, but they have been stripped from us and, for reasons of secrecy, we can't get them back. So we must…reach out."

_To those who would keep your secret_. "Why me?"

"Because your father is Alexei Volkoff." He said it like it meant something.

All it meant to her was that she had wasted enough time on this…nonsense. "He _was_ Volkoff, as big an illusion as any in this world."

He seemed to find her vehemence…satisfying, and leaned in close. "No, Miss Volkoff, not an illusion, not a lie. Alexei Volkoff was created, not an accident. The science that created him is the science that will give us the world. Coffee?"

* * *

><p>Morning, in a popular deli…<p>

They waited until the morning rush faded, which took a while. "Good morning, Stan."

The guy behind the counter turned and squinted. "Do I know you? You ain't from another one of them news stations, are you? Not another lawyer?"

"Lawyer?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah, from that girl in Burbank, trying to claim copyright infringement. It's just a sandwich, for God's sake."

"Oh," said Sarah. "No."

"Good," said Stan. He winked at Sarah. "Be a shame if a gal as pretty as you was a lawyer."

"Well, Stan, I _am _a lawyer, but I do dabble in lingerie modeling from time to time."

Stan blinked. "Really?"

Sarah burst out laughing. "No, Stan, not a model, not a lawyer."

Stan laughed too. "Hey, buddy," he said to Chuck, "This one's a keeper."

Chuck held up his left hand. "Kept, Stan."

"Lucky bastard. What can I do for you?"

Chuck pulled a phone from his pocket, and clicked play. "Well, Stan, we'd like to talk to you about this, if you don't mind."

Stan didn't waste any time looking at the video. He stopped smiling, too. "Look, buddy, it's like I told them other guys, I don't know him. I haven't got any idea where he is."

* * *

><p>At the DC Buy More…<p>

"Hey Alex, what are you doing here?" asked Morgan in surprise.

She lifted a package. "Guy in the office rolled over my headphones with his chair. You?"

"You probably won't believe it," said Morgan. "You remember how I lost my phone in Colorado? Somebody mailed it back to me!" He pulled it out of his pocket to show her.

"Didn't you just buy a replacement?"

"Well, that's what I'm doing here."

"You've been using it for a week, Morgan," she said with some snark. "I doubt they'll let you return it now."

"Oh ye of little faith," said Morgan. "I was a greenshirt for seven years, _and_ I have my sales receipt. Watch and be amazed."

They turned to watch a tall man walk up to the counter, trying to get the attention of the man, or maybe that was a woman, sitting behind it. "I'd like to return this blender."

"I'm on my break," s/he said, fiddling with a phone.

"I have my receipt."

"Bored of you."

"Are you in a serious relationship?"

"What?" said the androgynous Herder. "You're getting pretty personal for a blender return."

"Do you love her?" asked the man. "Him?"

"You better go talk to Big Michelle."

Alex shuddered. "Whoa. Spooky."

Morgan took a step backward. "So I have two phones. I can always use a spare…"

* * *

><p>Chuck put the phone away. "Somebody else looking for Morgan?"<p>

"_That's_ his name," said Stan triumphantly. "Morgan! Never could remember it."

"They were looking for him but didn't know his name?" said Sarah.

Stan shrugged. "I don't think his name was the one they cared about, they seemed more interested in the Chuck, wanted to know what he knew about it. I figured they worked for that girl in LA."

"I suppose they might," said Chuck casually, not believing it for a second.

"Hey, who do you work for?" asked Stan, belatedly suspicious.

"Us? We work for a restaurant chain on the East Coast," said Chuck. "Mr. Grimes manages one of our sites. Apparently while he was here he left a lot of cards, in addition to the sandwich recipe, and that's kicked up some activity. Corporate sent us to look into it and see if we can capitalize on it further." Money. Always a good excuse.

"You already got the video. I got some clippings here, if you want them," said Stan. They also had the name of his deli in them. Maybe he could get in on a little East Coast action himself. "Sales have been through the roof."

"That's great, Stan," said Sarah sincerely, as Chuck looked around the counter area for a camera.

Stan didn't notice, not with Sarah smiling at him. "Tell you what, I'll give you some numbers, if you promise to mention me in your chain back east. Maybe that'll get this LA girl off my back."

Not if Lou was the same combative entrepreneur Chuck remembered, but he wasn't about to tell Stan that. Since the whole campaign was imaginary, what was the harm? Now they had an excuse to stay, and snag some camera footage if there was any. Once Casey and Carina got there, he could look over Stan's customer base through an Intersect lens while they collected hotel guest lists. "That'll be great, Stan, thanks a lot. We're at the Golden Peak, just ask for Carmichael."

* * *

><p>At a certain meeting, over tea…<p>

"Are you saying my father was some sort of…construct?"

"Alexei Volkoff was an artificial personality created accidentally by Hartley Winterbottom," said Decker, spreading peanut butter on his bagel. "He was part of a team developing a method to bypass learning by direct upload of memories. He tested it on himself."

'A form of amnesia' indeed. "And became my father?"

"Eventually," said Decker, cruelly casual. He took a bite of his bagel and made her wait until he finished it. She sipped tea, and pondered her trainer's lessons on the breaking of horses. "We watched Alexei for years. The technology was promising but his instability was troubling. How much was from the memories, how much was inherent to the machine? Or Hartley himself? Could it be controlled, or reversed? We couldn't act until we knew."

"And now you know?"

"But that wasn't the only thing," said Decker, taking another long bite. "Alexei may not have had Hartley's personality but he had his abilities. The Hydra database was even more interesting than Alexei himself, and of course the Norseman."

_Of course the Norseman_. A secret untraceable weapon, to defend a secret virtual empire.

Decker wiped his face delicately with a napkin, not practicing good manners so much as mocking them. "We approached him about both, but he turned us down. We would have stolen them from him, but he had to expect that, and he figured out a way to hide them so completely no one could ever find either one. We were at an impasse, until Agent Charles came along. His solution was admirably final, if nothing else."

"He killed my father, and destroyed Hydra."

"Wrong," said Decker. "On both counts." He looked at his watch. "Gosh, look at the time." He stood up, and Tommy with him. "We can help you get your revenge, Vivian. Kill Charles and all those close to him, if that's what you want. But isn't it a better revenge to succeed, in spite of him?"

Control the world, in a coup that even Agent Charles wouldn't know about? No. "Yes, it's better," said Vivian, standing as well. "But I want him to know it."

"No one can be allowed to know."

Vivian shrugged. "No one alive." There were unmarked graves a-plenty already, she was sure.

For the first time, Decker smiled.

* * *

><p>Quinn drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on his precious file, contents already committed to memory but he kept the physical totem anyway. He liked to touch it, stroke it. Drum his fingers on it. His destiny. The Intersect.<p>

It should have been his, would have been if Larkin hadn't stolen it. Wouldn't have been in a hole for 378 days. _In. A. Hole! _Wouldn't have been broken, but broken was better than dead, which is what happened to everyone else they tried to give the Intersect to, when they rebuilt it. But not him. Obviously he was meant to have it. Destined.

Not Larkin, he'd made sure of that. Made sure the Ring knew about him, his plans. The Ring would have stolen his destiny back and killed the man who stole it, but Larkin didn't die fast enough. He destroyed the Intersect first, or so the Ring said, but now they were gone too.

He remained. His destiny remained.

But just because it was destiny didn't mean he had to be stupid about it, and even destiny could use a little help now and then. Agent Walker worked for Agent Charles. Agent Charles was really Agent Bartowski, and there was a new sandwich called the Bartowski in Vail, Colorado. That couldn't be a coincidence. Just like it couldn't be a coincidence that Decker's meeting was in Denver. Whatever connection Bartowski had to Vail, he'd find it, and then he'd find Walker.

She would get his destiny for him.

* * *

><p>Once out of the deli Chuck got on the phone immediately. "Alex? Hi, yeah…we just found out something you need to know. You remember that deal Morgan made, about the sandwich? Yeah, that one. Well, we're in Vail now…I know, it's supposed to be your job, but…yes, we're just checking…Look, there might be some danger to Morgan…I thought it might. We talked to Stan, he said other men were asking about him, and what he might know about me. So keep an eye out there. Right, I'll be calling them next. Very good. Right. As soon as–Yes, as soon as we find anything we'll call you. Yes. Bye." He ended the call and turned to Sarah. "Now who does she remind me of?"<p>

"The answer better be me," said Sarah. "Don't forget to call the restaurant, and give them a heads-up too."

"I'm doing it," said Chuck, already entering the number. "Hi, this is Mr. Underhill, I'd like to book a table, maybe two…No, I don't know how many, it's very up in the air at this point. But if it's going to happen I expect it will be in the near future. I'll let you know. Thanks."

"Underhill?"

"It's either that or Gandalf."

"You're such a nerd."

* * *

><p>The idea of putting cameras inside phones, like most other ideas, has its upsides and its downsides within the intelligence community. Sure, they could now take photos of classified documents, personnel, and installations far more brazenly than they used to, and they could even send those images to their home bases almost instantly. On the other hand, somebody else could do the same thing to them.<p>

Case in point, a surreptitiously taken photo of Chuck and Sarah, dispatched who knows where with no names, no dates, just a location, and an instruction. "Come quickly."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 Hmm, I seem to be in a fluffy mood today. Not sure why I wrote that Charah sexy scene.**

**A/N3 Whew, came to my senses and deleted it. Don't worry, it was just cuddling and sexy banter, you won't miss it.**

**A/N4 Oh, what the hell…**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N **I have no objection to Quinn as a villain, just that he was too sudden and underdeveloped to be the Ultimate Big Bad. As one of a set of Little Bads, he's actually quite useful.

* * *

><p>"<em>Always get the most important things done first."<em>

"_It never ends well."_

"_Just ask for Carmichael." _

"_I expect it will be in the near future." _

* * *

><p>Carina didn't throw herself into the chair, as she usually did. "You ever think about giving all this up? Becoming a civilian again?" she asked, as they suffered the long flight to Colorado in the otherwise-empty jet. She didn't want to jinx Sarah's last mission, but she just had to talk about it with someone. Hopefully up in the air the jinx demons wouldn't hear them.<p>

_This life? _"You mean, going places I'll never see, meeting people I'll never know?" asked Casey, not looking up from his magazine. "Working with people I'd rather kill, killing people I'm not allowed to hate first?"

"Yeah, like that," said Carina, taking a sip of her coffee, trying to scald the taste of that Florida swamp muck out from where it clung stubbornly to the inside of her mouth. When he put it like that it didn't seem like much.

Casey turned the page. "Nope, can't say I thought about it much at all. Guess I always hoped for a soldier's death, hopefully not a spy's death. In action, honorable."

"Arlington, yeah, I remember. Good luck with that." She saluted him with her mug.

Grunt. "Pretty sure Alex would rather I didn't."

She just got used to _having _ a father. "Pretty sure you're right." That's why agents weren't supposed to fall in love. Easier not to worry about losing when you have nothing to lose. Not many can love so powerfully that they can overcome that.

Casey raised his gaze, glaring at her. "What's _your_ angle?"

"Well, you know, can't have my own family, so I have to stick my nose into somebody else's."

"So bother Bartowski. Two babies, no waiting." If Ellie let's you within a hundred yards.

Carina hummed _uh-uh_ into her coffee. "They've got family like crazy over there, you'd think after twenty years apart they'd know how to do it, but no, they're like human crazy glue. How could I possibly twist their little minds with someone always looking over my shoulder? Whereas Alex only has you, she's ripe for a little mind-twisting…"

Casey almost hated to ruin her hopes. Almost, except that he really rather enjoyed it. "We watch _Downton Abbey_ together. Alex' idea, but I got into it."

"You're kidding."

"Not at all," said Casey, twisting the knife just a bit more. "The bombs they drop on Edwardian convention? Explosive."

"So you're saying the maid laying out the coffee spoons with the dinner service was intentional?"

"You caught that?"

"Well, duh! How can you flout expectations if you don't know what they are? Not a housemaid, though. I've always thought of myself as more the 'scandal-plagued heiress' type, don't you think?"

* * *

><p>Vail, Colorado. Quinn drove slowly through the town, getting a feel for the place. Plenty of scenery, lots of activity. Throngs he could hide in, treeline he could shoot from. Except he didn't know what he was supposed to be shooting at.<p>

He'd had plenty of time on the road to figure out how to fix that. "Hey, Stan."

Stan took one look at his un-skier-like outfit. "Not another one."

"Not another what, Stan?"

Something about his tone set Stan off, the wrong way. "No more interviews."

"I'm not looking for an interview, Stan," said Quinn, his tone hard. "I'm here to get a Chuck Bartowski, with a side of hot blonde." He held up a photo of Sarah. A bit of a long shot, but anybody who worked for Agent Charles had to know and would need to check, and she wasn't all that forgettable.

Stan was no good at trying to hide his reactions. "Don't know her."

Bingo. His destiny hovered. "I'm sorry, Stan," said Quinn, pulling a silenced gun from his pocket. "My friend here couldn't hear you."

Stan flinched. "Are you crazy?"

Quinn appeared to think it over. "I think so, Stan," he said sadly. "You go through the kind of things that I've gone through, you'd be a little crazy too." He shot twice, and the two coffee urns on either side of Stan started draining on to the floor. "And clumsy."

"All right!" yelled Stan. No need to make a mess, and now he was going to have to buy two new urns. "They're at the Golden Peak, name of Carmichael."

Quinn smiled. "Carmichael, huh? You know, Stan, that's almost funny."

Stan smiled in relief. Quinn shot him in the head. On the way out he grabbed some snacks, in case he had to shadow the hotel and got hungry.

* * *

><p>Chuck pulled his rental car into the lot, glad to be back, ready to do what he did best. "Stan said he might forward us some numbers," he said as he got out, in case anyone should overhear. "Let me ask at the desk."<p>

Sarah covered the door and Carina checked some of the side rooms, especially the lounge–faux rustic, ugh–while Casey checked the windows overlooking the lot.

At the desk Chuck asked the clerk a totally different question, screened from observation by his team. "The name's Carmichael. I left an item in the safe until I got back." He showed her his room key.

She checked the list. "Yes sir, Mr. Carmichael, I'll just get the manager."

* * *

><p>Quinn watched as the team surrounding Agent Walker fanned out in front of the desk. The tall one had to be Charles, the other two he dismissed as muscle.<p>

As if sensing he was being watched, the big guy turned, casually, appearing to inspect the rack of local sites while really looking out the windows. Quinn kept his eyes down, watching the charade on the screen of his tablet, down in his lap. He reached out, casually, and got a cookie.

When the big guy turned back as the manager arrived, Quinn dared to raise his eyes and see for himself. These little cameras couldn't catch everything. The manager handed Charles a case and his team gathered around as Charles opened it, not because he thought it might be compromised but simply because it would look odd if he didn't.

Behind Quinn, doors slammed, four of them in quick succession. He checked his mirrors. Four men in long coats walked away from four cars. Time to go.

Quinn checked his watch, put away his food and folded his paper, just like any employee finishing up his break. _This complicates things._

* * *

><p>The leader of the men on the rooftops relayed the information to the man in the comfort of the lead car. He called it in. "The information is correct, they are all here."<p>

"Funds are being transferred," said the man on the other end. Always reward your informants promptly. "We only want Carmichael. Kill the rest."

* * *

><p>Quinn stopped in another parking lot, looking for someone just getting out of his car, so he could acquire another set of plates. With that important detail out of the way, he found himself a quiet spot and pulled out his tablet, setting the video at the beginning. <em>"Stan said he might forward us some numbers."<em> Quinn listened to the sound of sirens in the distance. Not going to happen.

He zoomed in on Agent Charles, and got his second good laugh of the day. No wonder Decker had been so suspicious! No wonder Vivian valued him so highly. Lots of ideas for devious schemes presented themselves to Quinn, at least. Unfortunately, he couldn't make any of them work without her permission and he didn't know how to get that.

He let the recording play, watching Agent Walker According to Vivian she was married to Charles, and she looked it. He could use that.

Charles opened the box, and Quinn did whatever he could to get some idea of what was in it. Black and shiny, oddly shaped. It looked like a pair of…sunglasses?

He reached for his file, just to be sure.

* * *

><p>The uploads went as they usually do, until Chuck started to come out of it. Casey and Carina looked on with some concern as he raised his hands to his head, as if in some pain. "This is just… incredible."<p>

"What is, Chuckles?"

"What do you mean, 'what is it'?" snapped Sarah. "Isn't it obvious he's in pain?"

"Butt out, Bartowski," said Casey. Sarah turned toward him but already had his hands up. "We've got a bet riding on this."

It took a second, but…"You bet on an upload? What for?"

Casey shrugged. "That's the bet."

"Come on, Chuck," said Carina, slapping her hands on the table. "Win this one for the redheaded chicks. I need a new coat a lot more than Casey needs a new gun."

"No you don't," said Casey. "I've seen your closets." He checked everyone's security periodically, and they checked his. So far only Sarah never lost, but they gave the credit for that to her cyber-geek husband.

"Not recently, I'm guessing," said Carina. "I donate regularly to Fashion Models Anonymous."

Chuck groaned, dropping his hands but looking at no one. "It's like time-lapse photography of the sun rising and setting around Morgan's head."

Casey smirked at Carina. "Told you."

* * *

><p>"Have you made contact?" asked Quinn, using every trick in the CIA playbook to keep his voice steady.<p>

"Please," said the woman on the other end of the call. "He was fawning all over me. My hand is covered with slobber."

"Things have moved faster than anticipated." The Intersect, his destiny, was in Vail, within his grasp. "I need leverage. Grab him tonight."

"He'll be at the restaurant tonight."

"Well, then grab him at the restaurant!" Quinn killed the connection in fury. How hard could that _be_, for God's sake.

* * *

><p>Back at the hotel…<p>

The phone rang, showing Sarah's name, and Chuck put it on speaker. "You got the recordings?"

She sighed. "It's a wash on the footage, Chuck. Stan's dead, and the police have already confiscated the tapes."

"Robbery?"

"Doesn't look it. Shots on either side and then one to the head."

"Two to make him talk and one to shut him up," said Casey. "Wonder what it was about."

"Probably not a sandwich."

"What else could it be in this damn town?"

"You didn't see anything in the upload, Chuck?" Sarah hated for his suffering to be in vain.

"A couple of faces I recognized, no permanent affiliations," he said. "And a woman in white. I didn't recognize her but I feel like I should somehow. Looks like another dead end."

"Not yet," said Sarah, "Stan had our name and location on a pad, so expect a visit from the police."

"You gave him your names?" Casey sounded disgusted. He got up, moving between Chuck and the door, just on general principles.

"It was part of our cover," said Chuck. "Sarah smiled at him and he got all helpful, not _our_ idea."

"In this business a helpful civilian is a dead civilian."

"Not always," said Sarah

Casey couldn't deny it, but still…"It's the way to bet." He heard the sound of slowing cars and slamming doors from outside. "Heads up, sounds like the boys in blue have arrived." He looked into the lot and saw…four cars? "What the hell?"

A herd of elephants came down the hall.

"Chuck! Incoming!""

* * *

><p>Sarah heard the start of automatic weapons fire, but one of the bullets must have hit the phone, because it suddenly cut out. On the other hand, she could hear it perfectly well when she rolled the window down. If Casey had a machine gun, not a very big 'if', he still only had the one. In seconds, the steady stream was replaced by single shots.<p>

The lobby, when she got there, had been abandoned, walls and desk chewed up with what had to be spillover from Casey's weapon. Hopefully there wasn't too much collateral damage in the other direction. She ran down the hall to support her partners. "Casey? Chuck?"

Seven men lay on the floor, two of them in stolen police uniforms. Some had darts in their necks, elbows, or knees. Some had assumed that just because a vest was called bulletproof it was. Casey had a vest, too, and a table to crouch behind. "Casey! Where's Chuck?"

Casey pointed up, and she looked where he pointed.

Chuck had braced himself against the ceiling with his legs and one hand, leaving the other hand free to shoot with. He dropped to the floor and swept his wife into his arms.

Casey righted the table and picked up the computer, anything to avoid having to look. "Who are these guys?"

Chuck knelt and rolled them over, looking at their faces, but the Intersect gave him nothing. "Local talent, I'd guess."

"Not very talented."

"Were you hit?" asked Sarah.

"What kind of a question is that?" asked Casey, sounding offended.

"Well, you do get shot a lot."

Offense turned to smugness. "Not as much as I get shot _at_."

Sarah gave up. Nothing wrong with Casey. "Is this all of them?"

"Don't think so," said Casey, checking the window. One of the cars was gone. "Nope."

Sarah ran a hand through her hair. "Great." She heard the sound of many, many sirens approaching, and put her gun on the table. "Looks like I'm giving a statement after all."

* * *

><p>He drove like a wild man, turning at random, no goal in his mind other than to lose the car and get away. Eight on two odds, and they <em>lost<em>. This Carmichael guy was supposed to be just rental meat, nowhere near good enough to take out his entire team. He wasn't even there! Just the one guy behind the table, but even so all his men fell like flies. What was this Carmichael, a ghost?

Eventually he got to a section of town he recognized, and he pulled into a lot to switch vehicles.

The inside had been polished already, and he kept his gloves on, so he opened the door and stood, ow! A bullet must have clipped him. Not too bad, no blood on the seat that he could see, but he had no time to look. He slapped a hand over the spot of blood so it wouldn't be too obvious as he walked/hobbled over to the other car.

He took a quick look around, making himself look guilty as he checked to see if there was anyone there to see him looking guilty. All the excitement was elsewhere, and all the sightseers with it, so he opened the door and slid into the front seat.

The barrel of a pistol pressed against the back of his head, and he froze. "You guys are idiots, you know that?" asked Nicholas Quinn. "Let me talk to your boss."

* * *

><p>Sarah came back with Carina in tow, copies of hotel logs safely digitized for the Intersect. The officers were relieved to see her DEA ID, something that was allowed to operate in-country, even if she hadn't fired a shot. In spite of the chaos, Sarah noticed something missing. "Where's Chuck?"<p>

"One of the detectives took him away for a private debrief," said Casey. He looked around, and tapped one of the suits on the shoulder. "Where'd the other detective go?"

The suit looked confused. "What other detective?"

* * *

><p>Quinn pushed the laundry cart through the doors with a bang. The loading dock hadn't attracted the attention of law enforcement, and the last thug standing waited in his getaway vehicle. Quinn threw the cloths out of the cart. "Never let a bad guy get away," he said to his unconscious victim. He lifted Chuck up and dumped him in the trunk. "And that's how it's done," he said to the driver as he got in. "That's my end. Now you get me Walker. You can have the rest."<p>

* * *

><p>A few hours later…<p>

The phone in the hotel room rang once, bringing an end to the confusion. "Someone get Mrs. uh, Charles."

Sarah pushed her way through to the front before he was done speaking, and put the phone on speaker. "Hello?"

"I've got your team leader so this is what's going to happen," said a man's voice. "You're in possession of some highly-classified hardware. You're gonna leave your cop friends at the crime scene, while you bring it to the new Buy More hub in Colorado Springs, in three hours." Then he added, as if just remembering, "Or he dies."

Multiple fingers started typing.

"A twenty-seven acre construction site," said Casey.

"They'll be dug in by now," added Carina.

"No time," said Sarah. "We'll work it out on the road. Call North Star, find out who's on-site in Colorado Springs." Some backup would be nice, but she'd do without if she had to.

* * *

><p>The sun had set, the night turned cold. Not as cold as Sarah's heart. They'd taken her man.<p>

They stood at the conveniently-open main gate, looking over the expanse of torn ground and construction equipment. "Twenty-seven acres is a lot of _here,_" said Carina. "Not exactly specific."

"How do we find the right place?"

"They want what you've got," said Casey, indicating Sarah's burden. "You follow the signs. We'll follow the trackers." He and Carina moved into the stacks on their way to get Chuck, even as Sarah went after the people who took him.

Painted arrows and well-placed vehicles forced Sarah onto a single, confusing path through the stacks, until she eventually came out in a cleared space surrounded by materials. In the center was crate, and on the crate…a phone?

Sarah looked around, but no one seemed to be there. She examined the phone as best she could without touching it, and then, touching it with the longest object she could find, a length of pipe. When nothing happened she felt confident enough to touch it herself. The screen lit, showing an app running, a light pulsing. "Casey, Carina, where are you?"

"On your five," said Casey.

"Your ten."

Sarah touched the screen, and the light went out.

"Just lost a tracker," said Casey.

"Got his watch here," said Carina.

"It's a trap!" Sarah shouted, but of course by then the men in dark obscuring clothing were already rappelling into the killbox. Five to one, ten to one odds.

"_Bù shāng jīnf__ǎ!"_

She didn't hear them, didn't understand what they'd said. Chuck wasn't here, he'd never been here. They'd taken him from her and they had no intention of giving him back.

Time slowed.

Sarah Bartowski moved like lightning, staccato thunder rumbling. She moved like a gymnast and a dancer, moving and spinning, flipping across obstacles, running along walls, flowing from one place to another with liquid speed. She moved like a martial artist and a trained killer, using whatever weapons came to hand or foot, hammer blows and precision strikes toppling the enemy surrounding her, enemies she could fight.

She moved like a woman deeply in love, deathly afraid, and very very angry.

She was alone, surrounded on all sides by fallen men. She needed enemies, there had to be more. Someone was yelling and she turned to see who. She saw Casey and Carina, disarmed, captured, human shields against a blonde buzz-saw.

Two shots in the darkness, four, and the captors were down. Sarah stood there blinking, a killing machine with no one to kill, while her partners grabbed whatever weapons made them happiest.

Mary Bartowski walked into the light, and looked around. "Where's Chuck?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **I got the translation off the web, so hopefully it doesn't sound too strange to native speakers.

Back in S3 they had an episode where Sarah knocked a thrown knife out of the air with an axe, prompting Orion to ask, "Is she an Intersect too?" I saw no reason why Sarah-in-love would need an Intersect to do what she did to strike force. Bit of an insult to her character to think she'd have to, really.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N** Just as an observation, I do a bit more writing of Charah stuff now that I have Charah fans like Tut1971 and Molotov making regular comments about the Charah I write. Similarly, I do a bit more scene setting ever since resaw started mentioning how much my increased scene-setting improved his experience of the story. I'm sensing a theme here.

pizza: She uploaded the Intersect because the producers wanted her to. Purely manipulative story-telling. Obviously Casey would have shot Quinn first, in any real showdown. I could see it all coming from a mile away when he didn't. Real story logic doesn't let you lie.

I am once again filling in some empty space left at the end of last episode, in between Chuck's kidnapping and the attempted rescue. In canon this space was left empty, but I have other interested parties who need to be heard from. The canon attack on the Buy More by Quinn has been split into two parts. The first part we saw last chapter, with an attack on Team B in the hotel. The second part is Quinn's attack, in this case on Morgan, mostly offscreen.

* * *

><p>"<em>What's <em>your_ angle?" _

"_We only want Carmichael."_

"_Let me talk to your boss." _

"_Where's Chuck?"_

* * *

><p>Dinnertime in DC…<p>

Ellie settled herself into the cushioned seat of honor, with a sigh of relief and only a slight hitch of pain.

Naturally Devon noticed. "You okay, babe?"

"Yes, Devon, I'm fine," said Ellie, trying to keep still below the waist. "Just a little sore."

"We can always do this another night–"

So considerate, and so wrong. "No, Devon, we can't. A United States General cannot just clear her schedule anytime she pleases. I need to find out what's happening with Chuck and Sarah, and I will sit on a block of stone if I have to, to do that."

"Not in _my_ restaurant, you won't, Eleanor Faye Bartowski Woodcombe," said Morgan grandly.

"Hey," said Devon. "Watch it with the name-dropping, will you buddy? That's not always safe in this town."

"Doctor and Mrs. Woodcombe, you can relax," said General Beckman, oddly matched height-wise with her escort. Morgan pulled out her chair and she settled primly. "The reason I had to do this dinner tonight is because the secure booth here is so sought after all other nights. We can talk in peace."

* * *

><p>Post-dinnertime, in Colorado…<p>

Sarah forced her fists to unclench, her stance to relax. "Why are you here?"

"Where's Alex?" said Alex' dad. The FBI did kidnappings. Not committing them, resolving them.

Mary approached slowly, putting her weapons away as she shifted her gaze from one to the next of her strange family. "'Hi, mom.' 'Good shooting.' 'Thank you, Agent Frost.' Let me know when I get close."

The non-Chuck members of Team B shared a glance. "Hi, mom," said Casey, straining at some variety of falsetto. It didn't sound like Sarah.

"Good shooting," said Carina, her voice as low as she could get it, which wasn't far. The grin spoiled it. She didn't sound like Casey.

Sarah shook her head, but dutifully chimed in with, "Thanks, Agent Frost."

Mary smiled, almost laughed, but twenty years in service, controlling a psychotic criminal genius still came to her aid from time to time. "She did say there'd be days…"

"Beckman?" asked Carina.

"Who else? She didn't say anything about the nights, though." She looked at Casey. "Alex is babysitting for Ellie."

"You're our backup?"

Her retirement hadn't been exactly voluntary, so her reinstatement wasn't exactly official. "Not exactly…"

* * *

><p>Dinnertime, in DC…<p>

_Oh, thank God!_ And thank Alex, for getting to Florida in time! "So Sarah's coming back?"

"I'm afraid not, Ellie," said Diane. "She's still a potential target for the Norseman. She's actually safer in the field."

Ellie thought about all the unsafe things out in the field, but merely said, "I hope so."

Just then one of the waiters tapped politely on the panel by the entrance. "Excuse me, General, but the maitre D' tells me you might want to close the privacy door for a little while. It could get a little loud out here."

Beckman nodded as she wiped her mouth. "An excellent suggestion. Please, see to it."

The waiter nodded and withdrew, and the little sounds from without went with him. The silence killed their conversation inside as well.

Suddenly a low rumbling noise forced its way into their space. Men yelling, and popping sounds.

"Hmm, that reminds me," said Diane, fishing out her phone. "My apologies, but duty calls."

"What is that, champagne?" asked Ellie. "Sounds like a pretty wild party."

_Or a war zone. _"I expect we'll find out eventually," said Diane. "Mr. Clark, inform Jumper the mission is a go. Very good." She put the phone away. "So tell me, how are you adjusting to the baby in your lives?"

* * *

><p>At the construction site…<p>

"That was quick," said Casey.

Mary–Jumper–shrugged. "Chuck saw it coming somehow, gave everybody lots of time to prepare, even me. They got suckered right in. Just like these guys suckered you." She scowled fiercely at Sarah. "You are the mother of my second grandchild! Get your head in the game, or I swear I will ground you for a month. You're protecting for two, now."

So far the only version of Mary Bartowski that Sarah knew was the subtly manipulative Frost, using the influence she did have to get her way without overt displays of a power she didn't have. Mama B was a lot more direct. _Now I know where Ellie gets it from!_ "Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Frost looked at the pile of bodies surrounding her daughter-in-law. "What do you have, that they wanted so badly?"

Sarah reached into her coat, and pulled out a pair of sunglasses.

"No," said Mary. "They could have just killed you all and taken that." She scanned the surroundings, noted all the bullet holes. "This bunch wanted you personally, it's the only reason to come down at all." She nodded her head toward the object in Sarah's hand. "What is that?"

"It's the…thing your husband made," said Sarah, aware of how exposed they were. Anyone with the right equipment could hear them. She unfolded them so they'd look like glasses. "Part two, not part one. Chuck has that."

Frost regarded the glasses like she would any dangerous weapon. Those would kill anyone who put them on, except the man they were meant for and the woman currently holding them. "Wherever Chuck is."

"Yes, ma'am." Sarah put the glasses away. "We have to get him back quickly. Whoever took him knew all about these glasses, he has to know about the…thing."

"Is he one of these?" Frost tipped one thug over with a toe.

Sarah pushed some of the others, so she could get out of the space she was in. Climbing over the pile was just too much work. "I don't know. Only one of them ever spoke and I don't know what he said."

Frost looked at Casey. He shook his head. "I couldn't make it out, either. 'Shan fa' is what it sounded like, but they were shooting at us so I could be wrong. He was facing them, though."

"'Pu shan fa'," said Carina. "No language I know."

"Is that what you heard?" Mary asked Sarah.

Sarah dithered, but eventually shook her head.

"What did you hear him say?"

Sarah looked…guilty.

"You didn't hear him at all, did you?"

Sarah shook her head again.

_Oh boy_, as Stephen would say. "Agent Bartowski, you are relieved."

* * *

><p>"Thank you so much for setting my mind at rest, Diane," said Ellie as they were preparing to leave the restaurant. "Much as I hate knowing what's happening, I think being kept in the dark is much worse. I know my parents haven't been taking it well."<p>

"I'm surprised they weren't here tonight."

"They had business back in California, Dad's rebuilding RI, only without the evil. They're probably over Colorado by now. I'll catch them up later. Thanks again."

General Beckman nodded. "Glad I'm able to keep you all in the loop. Good night."

* * *

><p>At that moment, somewhere far to the west of Colorado…<p>

Some days, destiny needed more help than others. _"_What do you mean, they vanished?_ An entire strike team doesn't just vanish!"_

* * *

><p><em>No! <em> "You don't have that authority."

"I'm your mother-in-law, I have all the authority I need," said Mary. Then her tone softened, "No one knows better than I do, how you feel right now." She sighed. "Unfortunately that includes you. So I'm sending Sarah Bartowski off the field before she gets Agent Walker killed."

"I can control it."

"She did in Hawaii," said Carina.

"Was Chuck in danger in Hawaii? Had she been poisoned by the Atroxium in Hawaii?" asked Mary, and the silence was eloquent. She turned to Sarah. "Not to mention you can barely stand right now anyway. You broke a building the first time, and a _country_ the second. I was there to save you in Thailand but I almost wasn't tonight, and until you learn to aim it and fire on command, you're worse than useless. Do you really want me to call your General and make it official?"

What Sarah really wanted was to go after her husband, but Mary was right, after the fight she just had, she was done. If Beckman ordered her off the case that would be pretty final. If she recused herself…"No, ma'am."

"Colonel Casey, Agent Miller, do you concur?"

Sarah watched her two partners nod, unhappily.

"Good," said Frost. "That's settled. Sarah, you can't go back to DC, obviously, so we'll take you to a safe house elsewhere, once we finish cleaning the site." They all looked around at the bodies. Lots of bodies. Most of them in a pile where Sarah had been. For some reason they all gathered to excavate that first. "We need a story." Something to explain a lot of dead bodies to the people who would be discovering this mess in just a few hours.

"Gang war?" asked Casey, grabbing an arm and a leg. Always a popular choice.

"Doesn't look it," said Carina, pulling someone else away. "These guys are all dressed the same."

"Except for the masks," said Sarah.

Carina looked at the guy she was hauling away. "What masks?"

"The guy who yelled in my face had a mask on, like these guys here at the bottom."

"Take them off," said Mary. "Those would be the ones closest to you right at the start, and if they're shouting in foreign languages, I'm guessing they aren't Americans."

Casey pulled. "You win. Looks Oriental. Not Yakuza, no tattoos."

Frost looked him over. Yakuza tattoos tended to be flamboyant, but lots of syndicates tattooed their members. She checked in the usual spots. "Here." She pointed to a couple of characters inked on the back of his neck. "These guys are Guan Yi."

* * *

><p>Guillermo Chan sat in his office, reviewing security reports. Time was running out. The robbery of his bank by that accursed Carmichael had brought the wrath of the Guan Yi down upon his own head. If he didn't 'acquire' Carmichael soon, it would be his own painful sacrifice that appeased their wounded honor.<p>

He looked at the image taken just hours before, in the United States. Carmichael, still without that ridiculous mustache, and the blonde. He'd originally wanted to 'acquire' her too, selling her would have made up for the money lost in the robbery itself, but extracting her from America would have been too difficult, so he settled for her death instead. Then that man Quinn had called, Carmichael in hand, and offered him in exchange for her.

All Chan had to do was get her. He pulled up the hated video of the robbery, for yet another review. He could afford no more errors. The team he'd dispatched to receive Carmichael from the locally-hired mercenaries would instead become the team to acquire the blonde directly. Carmichael's team would come to recover him, and die at their hands, except for the blonde. The redhead would be a useful prize too, but he had no idea where she was, and anyway extracting one live prisoner from America would be hard enough.

The phone rang, and he was quick to answer it. His façade of calm dropped away, like that of a condemned prisoner, feeling the noose tighten around his neck. "What do you mean, we have lost contact?"

* * *

><p>Agent Walker had the conn. "Well, at least now we know what they want Chuck for," she said calmly.<p>

"I told him not to say 'game-set-match' like that," said Carina.

"No you didn't," said Casey.

"I was going to, but he said it too soon."

"Enough," said Mary. "They're going to make an example of him, that gives us time and opportunity." She looked at Sarah, trying to inspire some hope, but all she saw were spy eyes looking back at her. "Maybe more than one. You two they were happy to just execute before, but now it seems like they want Sarah alive. Something's changed."

Casey grunted a negative. "The only thing that's changed is that now instead of staging a gang war with lots of guns, no blood, and everybody beaten to death, now we're staging an international mob war with lots of guns, no blood, and everybody beaten to death. In Colorado."

Carina grimaced. "I think even a Janitor would have trouble with this one."

"Hey, it's a Buy More." Casey looked around, but that perfectly valid explanation simply wasn't going to fly in that headwind. "I don't hear you guys coming up with any ideas."

"Fine," said Carina. "Uh, the white guys had the guns, the Chinese all knew kung-fu and dodged the bullets, so the home team picked up whatever was laying around and they killed each other off?"

"You're not even _trying_ to think of a cover story, are you, Miller?"

* * *

><p>Hours later, leaving a carefully-constructed crime scene behind…<p>

Fortunately Mary had access to plenty of money, renting airplanes for one-way flights isn't the cheapest thing to do at the last minute. The new Orion Industries credit card even kept their names under wraps.

"I wish I knew where you were going," said Sarah, their pilot, once they were in the air.

"So do I," said Mary, sitting next to her. She laughed. "And here I was, wishing just the other day that I was more in the loop."

"Oh, so it's _your_ fault." 'Last mission' demons had nothing on the 'I just wish' demons.

No. Yes. "Sorry about that."

"Bring him back to me."

"I will."

"I know you will. I was in Thailand with you."

* * *

><p>Stephen Bartowski met them at the airport in California, taking Sarah in charge while her teammates checked over the latest intel. A larger and faster plane awaited them. "Where are they going?" asked Sarah as Stephen guided her to his car. She was stumbling with weariness, her body less and less willing to move.<p>

"The flight plan says Japan," he answered, as he made sure she was buckled up. He closed the door and went around to his side. "Last I heard, Hannah and Manoosh were trading some pretty wild theories why that–um…"

Sarah was sound asleep. She didn't move as her father-in-law drove back to his safe house. With an even safer basement.

* * *

><p>A day later (maybe two, crossing the Date Line sort of mucks up details like that)…<p>

The city of Tokyo, Japan is bustling, day and night. Hordes of people, as far as the eye could see, and since Chuck was taller than almost all of them, he could see pretty far. He would have been happier without the manacles under his coat, or the explosives against his chest, but at least he had that.

"Hurry it up, Bartowski," said Quinn, as they entered the train station, and the crowds, under pressure, became thicker and denser. "You wouldn't want us to get separated, would you?"

Chuck didn't bother answering that, he simply moved faster, unintentionally and unavoidably rude in places where he had no choice. Quinn excelled at finding those, and Chuck left a line of people behind him thinking evil thoughts about 'gaijin' as he kept pace with Quinn's reverse proximity trigger.

Quinn had a private cabin on the world's fastest and busiest train. He sat, reading a brochure, leaving Chuck to stand or sit as he would.

"Where are we going?" asked Chuck. "I've always wanted to see Osaka myself, big Shogun fan…"

"They like to give you a lot of crap about how it's not about the destination, so much as the journey," said Quinn. "But in your case it really is about the destination." He smiled. "I like that word, 'destination'. Sounds like destiny."

_Destiny implies someone cares. _"You believe in destiny? I'm more of a Fate kind of guy." _Fate screws everyone regardless._

"I have a destiny, Agent Charles, and so do you."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like mine?"

"Because your destiny is to die, so that my destiny can be fulfilled."

"We seem to be operating at cross-purposes," said Chuck. "And here I was hoping we could be friends."

Quinn put his brochure down, and stood. "Not cross purposes, Charles. Your life and mine have never intersected in any way." He pushed Chuck into a seat. "You have something that belongs to me, thanks to Bryce Larkin. But once I get Sarah Walker in my corner, I'll get it all back."

"Sarah will never fight for you."

Quinn dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "She's a woman, and women gravitate toward men with power. Female agents are no different." Quinn smirked in his victim's face. "We both know why she's with you, Charles. You really think you'd get a girl like her without the Intersect? Maybe you would, but when I get the Intersect she'll be mine. The rest of your team? Dead. Headlines in yesterday's paper. No one's coming to rescue you, Charles."

* * *

><p>Back in yesterday (or perhaps today, Date Line problems again)…<p>

Vivian noticed the folded up paper as they entered the terminal. "Don't tell me you actually _read_ that scandal rag."

"There's nothing funnier than what passes for journalism in America," said Decker. "But I have to say, today is special."

"How so?"

Decker unfolded the paper and held it up, displaying a picture of an urban development project, under a lurid headline. "Bunch of Chinese Mafia get into a turf war with some local yokels and they kill each other off. Nobody wins." He folded the paper again and stuck it under his arm, chuckling. "Only at a Buy More."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **Surprise. I thought the idea that the Guan Yi would just let somebody rob their bank without even an attempt at retribution was pretty lame, but that was yet another thing that just dropped out of canon.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N** I realized as I was writing this, the thing I dislike about most of season 5, but especially this arc. It's not fun. And the finale sucks, but we already knew that. I didn't try for outright comedy, but I did what I could to lighten the mood.

* * *

><p>"<em>You're our backup?" <em>

"_Agent Bartowski, you are relieved."_

"_These guys are Guan Yi." _

"_No one's coming to rescue you, Charles."_

* * *

><p>Carina stared out the window, at the clouds moving so deceptively slowly past them. Once she'd seen Sarah looking out a window like this, and wondered what she'd been thinking. She'd even offered a half peso per thought, which, at the time, would have been a bargain. Now she could sort of guess.<p>

She'd sat on seats this hard, looked out a glass panel at a much less interesting view for a much longer time, for very much the same reason. She'd had a lot of time to think, sitting there in her cell, staring at the ghostly reflection of herself in that plexiglass door. She didn't like what she'd seen, an image, a wisp of light on glass, practically not there at all. Her only anchor to the world of the living was her best and only friend, and she was so desperate to keep that anchor she almost destroyed it, destroyed herself.

She'd seen the face of Death outside that cell door, but that wasn't the face she'd seen last night. Last night's Sarah had a much thinner shell, ground down by the Atroxium, and she had yet to learn to handle it. Like Daniel Shaw she was unable to stop, her fear and anger driving her as his grief had driven him. Fortunately Mary was there to guide her in Thailand, and could call on that control again tonight, before something really bad happened. Much as it felt like a betrayal, she'd had to side with Frost on this one.

They _would_ get Chuck back. She couldn't let that happen to Sarah again, not now that she knew what it felt like. A little. What she'd said that night on the plane was true, Sarah and Chuck had gone through Hell for each other. She couldn't imagine them doing it on purpose, or herself, but they had done it. What she and Davis had was a pale shadow of that…that…

She looked around, but no one was looking at her. She looked back out the window, casting her thoughts into the sky.

Love.

There, she'd said it. Not out loud, not with Casey right over there. Thought it. Someday she'd say it to Davis. At night, maybe, when he was asleep. But she'd say it.

After they got Chuck home. They had to succeed, or there'd be no stopping Sarah, or helping her. Nineteen children would remain unconceived, and Carina, selfishly, wanted to be part of as large a family as she could find. She would make sure Chuck kept his promise.

* * *

><p>Alex looked up as the door knob rattled, reaching for a bookmark. Just because she'd completed her training didn't mean there wasn't always something she had to learn, and watching over a sleeping little angel was the perfect time to be learning it.<p>

Of course she had her hand on her gun, under cover of the book, just in case. That part of the job description sort of went without saying.

No uzi-toting terrorists tonight. "Hey, Alex," said Ellie, taking off her coat.

"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Woodcombe," said the young agent, releasing the gun and closing the book. "Did you have a nice time?"

Ellie smiled, much happier than when they'd left. "Yes, thank you. And thanks for watching Clara for us, the General's invitation was such a surprise…"

"Don't be silly, she's wonderful, very calm, and you just know there's something going on behind those beautiful eyes of hers."

Ellie had on her happy face. "I always thought so."

"You're the mom," said Devon, putting the coats away, "You're supposed to think so."

"Well she happens to be right," said Alex firmly.

"I surrender," said Devon, closing the door with Alex' coat in hand.

"You can tell right away he's a heart surgeon," said Ellie, with a grin.

Alex winked. "He's very smart." She held out her hands and Devon gave her the coat. "I'm glad you had a good time. Did you get a chance to talk to Morgan?"

"Not much, just when Diane arrived," said Ellie, giving her guest a hug. "I didn't see him when we left. There was some kind of loud party later on, must have kept him busy."

Alex kept it together in front of the civilians. Maybe the loud party was exactly that. It wouldn't hurt to swing by and make sure. "Well, that's life in management. Have a good night."

* * *

><p>"A train station?" said Casey. "Didn't they just get off a plane?"<p>

"Yes, but not every destination has an airport," said Frost. "How can we find out which train?"

"Which one leaves next?" asked Carina. That sign over there had the number '15' on it, but was that a time or a track designation?

Mary made an agreeing hum as she considered the question. "Yes, whoever took him wouldn't want to trap himself on board any longer than he had to. Good thinking."

"It is, but that's not why," said Casey. He pointed to the main board, the top item. "Look. The next train out's the _Tōkaidō Shinkansen_. A bullet train. Moves too fast for us to board, all the exits are sealed so Chuck couldn't get off even after he escaped." Because Chuck would escape, he always escaped. It was his best thing, right after 'beating the bad guys'.

"Close," said Carina, amazed that Casey would come out and say something positive about her in public like that but not about to draw his attention to it. "But I was really just thinking we should see if we can triangulate the signal with the one that leaves first, because it, you know…leaves first."

Casey grunted his approval. "That sounds like a plan. Get going."

Carina raced to the far side of the platform, the thick crowds no obstacle for her. Casey moved more slowly, Mary with him. She looked everywhere, but a man as tall as Chuck would have stood out pretty literally in this crowd and did not.

After just a few moments, much too soon for her to have reached the far side of the terminal, Carina reported in. "You were right, Casey. I just passed the bullet and now Chuck's behind me."

"Get on board," said Mary. "We'll have to get tickets en route."

* * *

><p>Sarah woke to the sound of voices, and to pain. She lay in bed, hurting when she moved but almost too stiff to move. A bottle of CIA-endorsed pain reliever stood on a table, with some toy radio gear, and a glass of water. Flat, warm, water. Somebody had left this here a while ago, someone…absent-minded. She took the pills and drank all the water, laying back down until either the pain went away or she had to go to the bathroom, whichever came first.<p>

She got out of the bed with a groan, and the low murmur of voices stopped, and then came back, slightly louder than before. The radio gear was real. She picked up the microphone part. "A baby monitor, Orion?"

"We got them for Ellie," said the speaker part. "In case she ever visited, so why reinvent the wheel? Especially when they were on sale." The speaker made a loud thump as he put it down, and the murmur of voices resumed.

She used the sound to navigate the unfamiliar house. The living room had a hole in the floor, with some steps leading down. Orion was up to his old tricks, or maybe after twenty years, he just thought better down there.

The basement held no racks this time, boasting instead a bunch of work areas, with an impressive collection of higher-tech toys. With laser sensors. She wove her way between them, wincing but silent, refusing to give the old hacker the satisfaction. He'd tried to plug the Intersect in his only son, with no one could imagine what possible consequences, and she'd hunted him for that. In her moment of greatest need he was there for her (for Chuck really, but that was the same thing in her mind), with a fast car and a rocket launcher. She'd never had the chance to use the rocket launcher but still she decided, if not to forgive, at least to live and let live.

Now she was here, in his house, safe until the rest of her family returned her husband to her. So odd, to have a family again. If she'd had a mother like Mary–her mind twitched away from the thought, as it always did. She could not, would not, think of her mother. Especially not now.

She stepped past the last of the lasers, without a sound.

"Hello, Sarah," said Stephen, without looking back. "You're just in time."

"For what?" asked Sarah, spotting the monitor full of purple pixels.

"I'm just filling in your General on the latest news."

"Good evening, Agent Bartowski," said the purple smudge. "How are you feeling?"

"Not field ready, that's for sure, General," said Sarah. The screen swirled, making her a bit queasy. Maybe that was morning sickness. She'd never had it or seen anybody who did, so how could she tell? She turned to her father-in-law, pointing at the screen. "I'm sorry, could you–?"

Stephen jerked into motion. "Certainly." He ran his fingers over the keyboard. "Um, here's grayscale. It's the best I can do at this bandwidth."

The screen transformed into a gray field, with darker gray smudges forming an approximation of a human face. "Much better, thank you." She focused on her commanding officer. "Beating up twenty-five men is the equivalent of twenty-five men beating _me_ up. Ellie would have me in bed if she knew."

Beckman's hand went to her ear. "I'm afraid she does know, Sarah, and she's being very vocal in her agreement with you. You two can get into that after the briefing."

Whatever happened to maternity leave? Or the Geneva Convention? "Yes ma'am."

"You did your part, getting your team out of a deadly situation with minimal casualties. Now let your team do theirs."

Like she had a choice. "Yes, ma'am."

"Mr. Bartowski was just bringing me up to speed on the latest developments." She seemed to like saying 'Mr. Bartowski' a lot more than saying 'Orion'. Like dancing on his grave, but without the grave.

He picked up his cue. "They just bought tickets on the bullet train to Osaka, General," he said, checking the account activity on his wife's _Orion Industries_ credit card. "Expensive little buggers, too…"

"Send me the bill," said Beckman, knowing he would anyway. It wasn't like he needed the money, either, the old coot would just be needling her. She would even pay it, if only to keep the relationship on a professional level, controlled and dignified, to whatever extent Orion did dignity. He would be a thorn in her side for the rest of her career, she was sure, but at least now she had a mailing address.

"Osaka? Why would the Guan Yi be holding him in Japan?" said Sarah.

Generals aren't paid to worry about such things. "I'll pass the information along to Focus, Agent Bartowski. I'm sure she has a number of theories. I understand she and Manoosh like to brainstorm together_._ We'll keep you apprised as the situation develops. Dismissed." She stabbed at the button , but the screen didn't go black. She tried it again, several times. Finally, she sighed in defeat. "Mr. Bartowski, if you would?"

Stephen laughed. "Certainly, General." A click on the mouse and she was gone.

"You're incorrigible, you know that?" said Sarah with a smile.

Stephen shrugged. "What can I say, she pushes my buttons."

Sarah turned and started to make her way back to the maze of lights, but not fast enough. Her phone started to ring. "I'm going, I'm going," she said, pulling it out of her pocket, and then she accepted the call. "Hi, Ellie…"

* * *

><p>"So you're thinking we have some third group involved here?" asked Manoosh. He'd thought so for a while now, but she was the one with the spreadsheets and the General's ear. So unfair. Try to sell one national secret to one foreign 'investor' and you were marked for life.<p>

"I don't see any simpler possibility," said Hannah a/k/a Focus. "None of my scenarios with just two players gets us anywhere close to this sequence of events."

"Not even the one where they're trying to lose a tail?"

"Dumped it," said Hannah. "It might have worked if they'd just switched to a different plane in Japan, but I figured a bunch of Chinese guys dragging a tall American through a Japanese train station is probably not the best way to avoid attention."

"Probably right about that," said Manoosh. "So what do we know about this mysterious third party…?"

* * *

><p>Chuck sat in a too-small chair, hands chained under his coat, a bomb strapped to his chest, and sneered into his captor's face. "You know nothing about power. You're a traitor, a coward, and a killer." And a liar. All the Intersects in the world wouldn't change any of that.<p>

Quinn sneered back. "The CIA abandoned _me_, Agent Charles, they betrayed _me_. I was supposed to get the Intersect. _I_ was supposed to get the power, but when Larkin stole it I was sent back out to be captured."

CIA. Good to know. "I doubt that's why they did it." Not to a potential Intersect host.

"Doesn't matter," said Quinn with fanatic confidence. He pushed himself upright. "They sent me out. I was captured. I was broken, and it was the CIA's fault."

_The Intersect won't fix what's broken in you._ "I notice you're not denying the rest." Giving him Intersect abilities now would just make him more of a monster than he already was.

Quinn smiled, more of a manic grin. "Why would I? Being the CIA's best didn't get me any CIA help," he said breezily. "Being a hero didn't get me out of that hole." His grin faded. "Being a killer did, and cowards live to kill another day."

Chuck had seen the CIA's best, he'd married her, and Quinn wasn't up to that standard. Sarah had taken more than her fair share of hits lately, but she wasn't 'broken'_. _If anything she was stronger. She'd gotten her life back, her soul back. Her friends back. Chuck flashed. _The shooter, singular, not plural, was a white male, with a beard__._ "Like when you went after Agent Rizzo?"

"How did you know about that?" snarled Quinn. "The Intersect?" He'd erased himself from the CIA's databases. He couldn't be in the Intersect!

"Her car got shot up on the Autobahn," said Chuck, leaving out the part about Rizzo's miraculous, albeit naked, escape. "The same night she brought us a photo, taken by another agent, who was also attacked. A roomful of men, all watching Agent Walker. All of them, except for a bearded, shadowy white male in the corner of the room. And no, he's not in the Intersect, which makes me wonder if his image was the reason the Facial Recognition app stopped working."

"That's very possible, Charles," said Quinn with a shrug. "Lots of things stop working around me."

He sat calmly. "I had no quarrel with Agent Rizzo, but I couldn't allow anyone to know that I existed, especially not the CIA."

"They do now."

"They will soon," corrected Quinn. Staying off their radar wasn't hard when you knew how it worked but the Intersect was just too tempting. "Now? You know what, I don't care. Sure it'll be a bit of a race but once I get the Intersect, who cares about the also-rans?"

* * *

><p>"What do you mean you lost Quinn?" shouted Decker into the phone. He didn't wait for an answer. "Reacquire him immediately or I'll let you explain to Mr. Delgado how you lost him in the first place." He threw the phone at the bed.<p>

Vivian looked up from the document they'd given her to read. "Problems?"

"No," said Decker quickly. "Quinn was supposed to be a known quantity, his obsession should have made him controllable, predictable."

Someone they wouldn't have to pay, to get what they wanted. "I'm going to guess it hasn't."

"Once I gave him those documents I predicted his appearance at the DARPA facility within a day. That idiot who was supposed to follow him decided to wait for him there instead, but he never showed up."

"You need to start hiring a better class of idiot," said Vivian. "I happen to know where many can be located."

"What about Quinn?" asked Clyde. "If we're not going to use him we need to cut him off sooner rather than later."

She nodded. Quinn was a useful tool, but as a competitor he was most unwelcome. "Clearly something has changed. And before you get your knickers in a twist, or however they say it in America, I'll tell you what I think it may be."

* * *

><p>Guillermo Chan sat at the back of train, far from where his rank and position entitled him to sit. His time had run out, and if anyone were to discover that fact he was a dead man.<p>

He did not know this man Quinn, nor Quinn him, but he knew Mr. Carmichael by sight. He watched as the pair walked forward to the reserved cabins, and knew the signal would come soon, a signal for a trade that would never occur.

He didn't know why Quinn wanted the blonde, beside the obvious, but if she was his price then Chan would meet that price. Quinn seemed like a man of ability, a useful man to have in America. A ransom demand, late at night, would give his own team a chance to do what the American meat could not. When that team also fell silent Chan knew he would have no more opportunities.

Chan slipped out of his seat at the back of the train, using his illegally-acquired key to access the baggage and freight sections of the train. He recognized his own parcels and slapped them all on the side. From the inside latches were undone and the walls came down. Men stepped out, not mercenaries this time. These men were Guan Yi, under Guillermo Chan's personal command. They were the only forces he had left.

He needed Carmichael. What Quinn would not give would have to be taken from him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **I don't know why Carina's getting all the character development lately. Next chapter will be Casey's turn.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N **Casey didn't get a chance to spend a lot of time with Mary, so here he does. Sarah has a few words with Orion, about his son. In canon Chuck was simply chained, and easily rescued. Since I didn't have Sarah here, or Alex held hostage, I had to come up with a different method for Quinn to control Chuck. Putting those sections together took the longest time. I ended up rewriting them a few times over. But it was good, since I came up with a much better way for the episode to end.

* * *

><p>"<em>That sounds like a plan." <em>

"_Send me the bill." _

"_You know nothing about power." _

"_Cowards live to kill another day."_

* * *

><p>Carina slipped through the crowds in the dining car, heading for the high-end section reserved for the high-rollers. Neither Casey nor Frost had come equipped to fit into this environment, and truth be told, neither had she, but she'd always thought fitting in was more about attitude than apparel. Looking down her nose on others was second nature to her. The crowds parted for her as she passed, returning gracious nods for their deeper bows. Even the unshaven European toad knew better than to block the aisle as she passed by.<p>

She paused in the doorway, but moved on without turning back. The European toad ignored her, and ordered a sushi lunchbox for himself.

"Casey, Frost," said Carina as she passed by closed doors in the next car. "There's a man in the dining car. White, probably European. He smells like trouble." Not too long ago she would have completely ignored it, but ever since Devon had told her she smelled like gunpowder she'd been extra conscious of the smell, extra careful to wash off the residue.

"We'll watch for him," said Casey, "But we're headed away from the dining car right now, toward the baggage end. Not seeing any Chinese thugs yet."

Carina double-clicked a response, trying to look in windows without looking obvious about it.

* * *

><p>"Colonel, what's your professional assessment of the situation?" asked Frost, looking around them at the hordes of laughing happy people going about their lives at 300 kilometers per hour. "Do we have much of a chance to recover Chuck, without violence?"<p>

"No," said Casey instantly. "The Guan Yi aren't known for restraint, and to be honest, neither am I." He moved through the potential collateral damage as quickly as he could without drawing more attention than he already did. "If we can get Chuck back, I think we can manage to achieve minimal violence, though. It's sort of his specialty."

"Specialty? Like Sharpshooting?"

"Yeah, only worse. They had to invent a new grade at the facility."

Mary stepped around a group of giggling schoolgirls. "A new…grade?"

Casey grunted, rather than repeat himself. "They called it the Escape Clause. My fault, really."

"You named it?" asked Mary with some skepticism. Casey didn't look like the type for creative labeling.

He shook his head. "I _started_ it. Put him in A.I.R. in his first module, but it backfired. He kept escaping, and the name stuck."

Advanced Interrogation Resistance was for experienced agents, it could destroy an unprepared mind. Frost turned a mother's angry glare on her current partner. "Why would you do that?" she asked, her voice promising pain, with a long life to feel it in.

Casey kept his hands away from his guns. "Because I didn't want him to become _me_. None of us did, especially him. He only wanted to be an analyst, for God's sake. I expected him to wash out, fail honorably, and move on."

_You only fail if you quit, and Bartowskis never quit. _"Well, if it's any comfort I don't see any signs of him turning into you. Looks to me like you're turning into him." She turned back to the search.

He followed. "Don't tell him I said so, but I'll take that as a compliment. He's the second-best–" a train full of people, some of whom might understand English "–person in our profession I've ever worked with."

_How's that a compliment?_ "Only the second?"

"Sarah's the first. Maybe I'm just old-school but I prefer her style. Your son almost never met a problem head on, in any area. I think he did it for fun, but it was a real pain in my ass. Made it hard to figure a score using the standard metrics."

Maternal pride warred with _So they just let him cheat?_ "And how did that translate into real tactics?"

"Not one hundred percent, but you know that," said Casey. "Took a while to find that pinch point, though." Casey paused to push open the door to the next car, and said, under cover of the wind and the noise, "He used a porn virus to kill a computer-driven bomb. He blew up my car."

"Now _that_ sounds like something a regular agent might do."

"He had to redirect a guided missile away from a cruise ship using a video game controller, and my car had the right signal." Not a cruise ship, but it had passengers, and what the hell, make it sound good for mom. "I tried, you know. Thought I had him, when I put him up against a girl, but we all know how well that worked out."

She was probably the only one who did, the only one who'd read the mission report about events inside the club, and went through the aftermath with Sarah on the outside. "You did your best."

"My best wasn't good enough. Only life could beat Chuck, and life eventually did. By the time he was done with his 'training', three trainers requested transfers back into the field," said Casey with a dark edge of humor in his voice. "Guess they thought it was safer."

Their comms activated and they stopped, just a car or two from the end of the train. "Guys, I found him, in the reserved section."

Casey got out a prop phone. "We're on our way." They headed back through the crowds. "Makes sense, I guess," said Casey. "This guy Chan probably only ever gets the best."

* * *

><p>Stephen knocked on her door. "Agent Walker?"<p>

"Come in."

The door opened, Orion showing off his genius once again, by opening the door and entering the room with a dinner tray, all without spilling anything. Sarah sat up slowly in the bed.

"I brought you some dinner," said Stephen, "Although the best that can be said about it is that I eat this way myself, when Mary's away."

"That bad, huh?"

Stephen laughed ruefully. "Ellie learned to cook in self-defense." He set the tray down. "If you'd like I can keep you company, help take your mind off the food."

She looked at the meat, and then the knife. "You're that good a talker?"

"It's about Chuck."

Clank! went the silverware. "What's happened?"

Stephen held up a calming hand. "Nothing that I know of, they're probably still searching the train. This is about…before."

Sarah jammed her fork into meat, but the plate was made of stronger stuff. "Yes?"

"I'm not going to apologize for what I did, what I…tried to do."

_Twice. _The knife tore through the meat, squealing along the porcelain. "You're not?"

"No, I'm not," said Orion, wincing. "This damned project has ruined my life for thirty years, taken away my best friend and the woman I love. Of course I'd do whatever I had to do to save my son."

"Chuck didn't need saving, not like that."

"I beg to differ. Mary told me about showing Chuck my panel, and I've read the reports Ellie wrote about the consequences. 'Hitting an eggshell with a hammer' is the mildest image I can think of. He wouldn't have those skill sets running loose in him today if I'd been allowed to prevent any future uploads when I had the chance."

_Which means Mary wouldn't have been able to get past us, and…what?_ No Hartley? No capture of Hydra? No Agent X files? Even Frost thought it turned out better this way. Sarah embedded her knife in the dessert, an attempt at custard. "You know, Ellie once called you eleven kinds of a genius but at times like this I really have to wonder."

"Sarah?"

Her body was sore and anyway he was family, so she used weapons appropriate for the occasion. "You wanted to talk, I'm talking. So listen. We've seen how deadly the full Intersect could be, even to trained agents."

"_Especially_ to trained agents…"

"Don't interrupt. We know how dangerous even the singleton memories could be, to a capable adult mind."

"Hartley had issues…"

"I'm not done. You and Mary created some wonderful children. One has only to look at Ellie, her strength, her kindness, to see the kind of person Chuck could have grown up to be."

"Chuck's strong…"

"He's nowhere near as strong as he would have been, without the Intersect."

Wait a minute, whose side was she taking? "That's what I mean…"

"No. It's not," said Sarah. "Whatever Chuck might have become before he got that first upload, he's ten times that now." She took Stephen's hand. "You're afraid because of Hartley, but Chuck isn't like him in any way. He wasn't an adult, they weren't singletons. They weren't anything at all, just empty files. That first upload opened up his mind into this vast space and he _filled it_. He grew into it, his mind is what it is because of it."

"A spy's mind." He pulled his hand away.

She let him go. "No, it's just the best use of all his abilities. He doesn't want to waste them, and he wants to do some good. 'With great power', and all that."

That stung. "He's not a superhero, he's a spy."

"So were you, or was everything you said in that spy will a lie?"

That stung more. "I was trying to save my family."

_Chuck saved it for you. _"He's a bigger man than you."

Sauce for the goose…"You don't mind seeing him in danger?"

"He isn't _in_ danger," she said. "Not anymore."

* * *

><p>Carina stopped, looking through the glass to admire a man's behind as he stood, watching the scenery whizzing by. Her first response was a body-wide rendition of <em>Yummy!<em>, then _That's Chuck!, _followed immediately by _Oh crap, how do I write _this_ report?_ No way Sarah would take 'I recognized your husband by his ass' well. She activated her comm. "Guys, I found him, in the reserved section." She tugged at the door, but of course it was locked. With a flick of her fingers she popped open the lockpicks in the FRODO and got to work.

Seconds later the door popped open. He didn't turn. "Chuck?" She went into the room.

_Now_ he turned. "Carina? Don't–"

She stopped. "Don't what?"

He sagged. "Too late now. There's a bomb under my coat, and a trigger by the door."

She turned to look at the little gizmo. "What kind of trigger?"

"Motion detector, I think."

'Motion to', she was guessing, since she'd just done 'motion from' and was here to think about it. "Your motion or anybody's motion?"

"It didn't matter before, and to be honest I really don't want to experiment right now either."

She backed away. "Good point. Let me see the bomb."

"Better yet, let _me_ see the bomb," said Chuck."My hands are cuffed."

"Fine." She unzipped his coat. "Oh, God."

He looked down, not a great angle but enough for the purpose. "It's a Volkoff."

"I can't defuse that."

"Don't try," said Chuck. "This thing could destroy the whole car if it goes off. Just get out of here."

"Oh, yeah, like I'd survive that." Sarah would take the news so well. "We've got to get you off this train!"

"You've got to get Sarah off this train!"

"What?" said Carina.

"You've got to get Sarah off this train before Quinn finds out she's here," said Chuck.

"She's _not_ here, but who's Quinn?" asked Carina. "We came to rescue you from the Guan Yi."

Chuck blinked, puzzled. _She's not here? _"There's Guan Yi on the train?"

She gave him a look full of _Duh! _"When you were taken, we got a ransom demand, but it turned out to be a trap full of Guan Yi thugs. Sarah got us out of it, and we followed your trackers to Japan."

Chuck flashed. "Oh. I was wondering why Quinn would bring me to Japan, of all places, but now it makes sense. He's obsessed with Sarah. He must be planning to trade me for her, or for their help in capturing her, I guess, if they don't already have her. They don't have her, do they? Where is she?"

"Safe house, we had to leave her behind. She destroyed twenty-five guys by herself."

He remembered their wedding night, and scaled up. "Ouch."

She scanned the room, searching for a way out of their predicament. "Who is this Quinn?" The room gave her no clues.

"He's the guy who shot up Rizzo's car," said Chuck. "Probably behind you getting attacked in Russia, too. He was in that picture you took, of Sarah at that club."

That got her attention. She wanted to meet this guy. "Describe him."

Chuck gulped. She looked predatory, but not in the way she usually looked predatory. "Uh, shorter than me, vague accent," he said. "He looked sort of like that bad guy from Equilibrium, the one you thought was cute, only with dark hair and a beard."

The dining car guy! She raised her mike. "Casey–!"

"Step away from him, miss," said a man with a vague accent behind her.

* * *

><p>Guillermo Chan stood in the shadows with his men, watching as the ever-so-efficient conductor strode through the car. It galled him to be reduced to this, but his future rode on this operation. Nothing could be allowed to upset it, especially not his own pride. The Guan Yi needed him, his expertise. The exchange project wasn't as successful as they'd hoped. The project itself ran smoothly, but with the ascension of Vivian Volkoff, her consolidation of power, governments around the world were putting all their efforts into interdiction. How else to explain the failures of their shipments, the ruin of their investors? Their best experts could detect no pattern, no sign that anyone had penetrated their systems.<p>

The death of Carmichael would change all that.

At that moment the phone in his pocket buzzed, a hopeful sign. Quinn's signal that he was prepared to trade. Chan was even willing to make the trade, provided this man Quinn would accept a promissory note in place of the actual woman. Somehow Chan doubted that he would. That would be unfortunate, an agent in America would be a useful thing in his new future. Some concessions might be in order. Perhaps he would keep his word after all.

"We are going to the dining car," he told his men. "I will take two of you with me." The choice of men to accompany him was easy. The man who first dealt with Quinn in America had to be there, a friendly face of sorts. His second would be the other. "The rest will secure our route. Discreetly."

* * *

><p><em>One little mistake, that's all it takes.<em> Carina raised her hands, still with her back to him, and took a step to the left. At least Chuck would be out of the line of fire.

"Turn around," he said, and she turned. The European toad she saw in the dining car stood just inside the doorway of the room. He gave her a good long look, because he could and why not? "I thought I recognized you. I thought you might be some actress or model, but you're the agent from the hotel. You're supposed to be dead."

Carina shrugged.

"Put your hands down."

She complied, as he reached around the wall and pressed a switch on the trigger. Only then did he enter the room. "Zip him up. When your team gets here, call them in." It wouldn't do for the bomb on Chuck's chest to be blazingly obvious.

"Why should I?" she said, her hands busy with Chuck's jacket. The zipper snagged, and she had to work it free.

Quinn reached into his pocket. "Well, if you'd rather, I could wave them in myself, but then I'd have to take my hand off the deadman switch here and Agent Charles wouldn't like that."

"Fine." She tugged the zipper down again.

"Hurry it up."

"I'm sorry, I'm not used to putting men's clothes _on_ them," said Carina.

He looked her over again. "I'll bet."

Finally the zipper went up, and Carina stepped away from Chuck without needing to be told again.

"Good. Now we wait," said Quinn unnecessarily, standing back.

A few minutes later, Carina saw a flicker of movement outside the door. "Casey, Frost, come on in," she said calmly. "He's got Agent Charles wired to blow."

Quinn recognized the big guy from the hotel, too. "Who the hell are you?" he asked Frost.

Frost didn't miss a beat. "Their backup from Colorado Springs."

"She saved us, after your Guan Yi friends took Sarah," added Carina.

"Not friends," said Quinn, "Just an opportunity. Guns." All the guns were put on the floor carefully. "Over here." The owners kicked them towards him. Quinn took his hand from his pocket, with the detonator armed and ready. He put his own gun away so he could collect theirs. He studied a complicated and utterly unintelligible panel full of buttons decorating one wall and pressed one, opening a slot. He put their weapons into it, closing the panel when he was done. He pulled out his own weapon again. "Charles, behind me."

Chuck moved in between Quinn and his friends. "I think I'd rather stand in front of you."

Quinn considered his options, but most of them sucked. Murdering Charles' team wasn't a part of this deal. Those Chinese morons were supposed to have done it two days ago. "This way."

"After you."

Quinn backed to the door and Chuck moved after him. Quinn put his gun away, reaching around the corner and reactivated his little gizmo. "Motion detector," he said to the group on the other side of the room. "You stay over there, he lives a little longer." He opened the door and stepped out into the hall, and Chuck followed. "Say goodbye to your friends, Charles."

Chuck's arms tensed. "Sorry," he said to his team, his family, "I was gonna give you guys a jaunty little wave, but, you know…" His hands moved in the pockets.

Carina waved back at him.

Chuck smiled. "See you later."

* * *

><p><strong>AN2 **Okay, so I got a little cliché with Quinn stopping her just as Carina was about to warn Casey, but the section I overwrote had a lot more clichés than that, so count your blessings.


End file.
